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REMINISCENCES 

/ OF THOUGHT AND 
FEELING; 

Jl. A. K. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF 
VISITING MY RELATIONS. 




LONDON 
WILLIAM PICKERING 

1852 




PREFACE. 

S there are portions of this little 
work, which perhaps, in the 
opinion of some readers, would 
have been better omitted, or at 
all events, left to take their chance of publi- 
cation after the writer's decease, it may be 
proper for me to state, that, although it has 
long been impressed upon my mind that a 
sketch of the leading features of my religious 
experience, might be useful to some of my 
fellow creatures, I had not the slightest idea 
of introducing it in this volume, when I began 
to write it; nor, for some time afterwards. 
I was insensibly led into the undertaking, 
and seemed to myself to be in the fulfilment 
of a duty, in proceeding with it. 

It is not the first time by many, that I 



IV PREFACE. 

have entered upon such an undertakmg. I 
had once proceeded as far as five hundred 
pages of manuscript, in recording my own 
story ; but not possessing any friend or ac- 
quaintance, whom I could properly invest 
with a discretionary power as to its disposal 
after my death, I thought it best to destroy 
it. It being perfectly clear to me, that if 
my story were to be written at all, it must 
be done in my lifetime, I have ventured, on 
the present occasion, to introduce the auto- 
biography which forms the concluding part 
of this volume ; if indeed, such a mere out- 
line deserves that denomination. 

M. A. K. 




REMINISCENCES OF THOUGHT 
AND FEELING. 

CHAPTER I. 

' N the " Reminiscences of Coleridge and 
Southey/' the author quotes these 
words from an unpubUshed letter of 
Cowper's ; " I know well that pub- 
lication is necessary to give an edge to the poetic 
turn ; — and that what we produce in the closet is 
never a vigorous birth if we intend that it should 
die there. For my own part, I could no more 
amuse myself with writing verse if I did not print 
it when written, than with the study of tactics, for 
which I can never have any real occasion.'' * 

Whatever be the nomenclature under which we 
register our passing thoughts, — poetry or prose, — 
journal or note-book, homily or diary, the propen- 

* Cottle's ** Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southej," 
P. 7. 



2 REMINISCENCES OF 

sity to advance this cherished record from the ob- 
scurity of manuscript to the dignity of type, is 
almost certain to be eventually experienced. We 
would be read, in short, by the public, as well as 
by ourselves; — for when 

" We've augbt to say in sermon or in sonnet, 
We like to know what others think upon it." 

Unquestionably, there is an abundance of vanity 
at the root of this desire to publish our lonely effu- 
sions ; but we must let that pass. There would, I 
take it, be few, if any artistic doings, without the 
stimulus of some degree of vanity on the part of 
the doer. 

Not that it is anything of the artistic, fine-writing 
sort which I have here to set before the reader ; 
for I am a very plain-spoken person, and one who, 
on principle, endeavours to stand aloof from that 
common but insidious mode of journalizing, which, 
for the sake of being interesting, or any other non- 
sensical thing that self-love worships, is for ever 
turning phrases, and making a sentimental much- 
ado about nothing. I like to come to my point by 
the shortest cut, and to grapple, if I can, with the 
little bit of truth that is to be got out of things and 
people. 

Alas, how little that is, and how hard to find ! 
as I am at this moment particularly prone to per- 
ceive, by having just returned from a call I have 
been making at the house of a gentleman who is a 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. O 

neighbour, though I cannot say a friend, of mine ; 
for his is a nature which leads him to make ac- 
quaintances rather than friends. 

He is one of a class, which, though not always 
prominent, is always eminently prosperous and 
respectable in the eyes of that part of mankind 
who sail upon the surface of things, and who nei- 
ther know nor care what may be beneath it. The 
thinker however, who dives below, and looks for 
truth in the well wherein she is said to reside, may 
perhaps discover that all is not so fair as it seems 
with this order of human beings. 

It is one which exists, I think, in detached family 
groups ; for I have generally observed its charac- 
teristics to be a sort of heir-loom property. The 
most marked of its features is pride ; — a grim sort 
of thing, but very effective in assisting its votaries 
to the fulfilment of their respective purposes ; and, 
wherever it is the mainspring of action, be it in 
peasant or prince, you may rely upon it that you 
see a rising person. 

I remember well, some forty years ago, my father 
taking a lad of sixteen or eighteen, the son of a te- 
nant of his, as a foot-boy ; and nothing more wild 
or uncouth could be imagined than his first appear- 
ance, fresh from the country and the plough. But 
in less than a week, he had put on with his new 
livery, a new man, and began to hold up his head, 
and to announce visitors with as much attempted 
dignity as any footman in the land. He soon left 



4 REMINISCENCES OF 

US, with a view to what he called " bettering him- 
self," and proceeding from round to round in his 
particular ladder, the last we heard of him from the 
old peasant his father, was, that he had progressed 
to the situation of house-steward with a nobleman, 
and was making and saving money with a degree 
of steady dihgence w^hich promised him a very fair 
prospect of eventually settling down in great com- 
fort and some importance, as a sort of gentleman. 

" John alius said he'd be somebody afore he 
died,'' was the old man's summary of the case. 

Now, had John been bred to the University, he 
w^ould, as a necessary consequence of his distinct 
and purpose-like aims, have migrated through the 
changes of reading-man, wrangler, hard-working, 
money-earning private tutor, fellow and tutor of 
his college, bishop's chaplain, and rector of a fine 
living, and have closed these transmutations with a 
fair prospect of some day becoming a dignitary of 
the church. 

The elements of worldly success are in people of 
this sort, and they cannot help getting on. They 
are brought up to it, and imbibe their notions of 
what they mean to be, and to possess, whilst they 
are spinning their tops and nursing their dolls ; for, 
as I have said, this turn for promotion runs, I 
think, in families ; the children of which may be 
seen to inherit it with other ancestral similitudes. 
At all events, thoughtful and observing individuals 
will, I believe, be able to recognize a sort of well- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 5 

doing in the world to be peculiar to certain domestic 
circles, and the members of such circles to be sin- 
gularly distinguished for getting the best of every 
thing which their opportunities admit of their pro- 
curing. 

But, if the truth must be spoken, these climbers 
to preferment are usually heartless, uncongenial 
people ; unless indeed, when they fall in with those 
who are cast in the same mould as themselves. 
The freemasonry of instinct may then, perhaps, 
draw like to like ; if drawing it can be called, 
which, in such characters, never approaches to the 
closeness of confidential intimacy; for persons of 
this kind are seldom or never confidential. They 
live at too great a distance from themselves to ad- 
mit of this ; and one cannot much wonder at it ; 
for, how could a man well bear to talk with a heart 
which, if allowed to speak so as to be heard, would 
say to him, " Now remember that your business in 
this world is to get all you possibly can, and to let 
nothing escape you in the shape of fame, wealth, 
or honour, which you have the power to secure. 
Put a high price upon yourself, and devoutly eschew 
every sort of sentiment or habit which may cause 
you to lose caste with the set whose favour you are 
to seek and cultivate. Disdain and renounce all 
connection with inferior people ; and by inferior 
people I do not mean merely the obscure, the poor, 
the ignorant, and the underbred ; but such as hold 
an inferior place in the eyes of the world. Talent 



b REMINISCENCES OF 

or accomplishment, or genius, or amiability, or any 
other finely named qualities, are to be weighed by 
you not according to their intrinsic value, but their 
current value with the world. Wherever, and what- 
ever, your lot for the time may be, find out the 
things and people connected with it whose own per- 
sonal distinction of any kind may reflect some con- 
sequence upon you ; and always be humble and 
patient in this part of your progress to the place 
you mean to make your own at life's table ; for if 
you should at any time yield to a fastidious dislike 
of this great man's meanness and folly, or t'other's 
treachery and falsehood, or sufi^er yourself to adopt 
opinions and estabUsh principles, upon any other 
ground than their immediate usefulness to your 
purpose of getting the most and the best of every 
thing that is to be got, — you will find it a hopeless 
task to attempt pushing your way through the 
crowd, and must be content to occupy a nook with 
a crew of nobodies to the end of your days." 

Certainly, there could be no tolerating a heart 
that talked to one in this style, and therefore, no- 
body allows that hearts ever do say such things. 
Hearts, however, are very direct and straightfor- 
ward in their aims ; and, understanding them to 
represent the will, desires, and affections of the 
human being, and assuming that whatever we love 
and long for, reflects the truest picture of our na- 
ture, we should find perhaps, that were we obedient 
to that holy precept " Commune with your own 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 7 

heart in your chamber, and be still," our interior 
companion would often set such a faithfully disa- 
greeable portrait of our real condition before us, as 
would prompt us to take very speedy and effectual 
measures for rendering it more attractive. 

But with regard to the subject of personal ad- 
vancement, perhaps it will be said, that every body 
must desire to get on in life, and that to represent 
a wish as unamiable or erroneous, which is little 
less than universal in the human race, is, to say 
the least of it, to inculcate very gloomy and de- 
pressing doctrine. 

It is not the wish to get on that I have any con- 
troversy with ; for I am well aware that competence 
must be in a way to be secured, before the mind is 
sufficiently liberated from a thousand sordid hopes 
and fears, to rise to any generous or exalted effort. It 
is the never losing sight of " getting on^' — it is the 
fusing of every point and purpose of existence in 
that pursuit, and the setting that one object before 
the heart as all it has to seek, which I resist and 
disapprove of; and I believe if the matter were 
scrutinized, it would be found that every man car- 
ries a counsellor in his own breast, which with " a 
still small voice," resists and disapproves of it also. 

And what a great matter is it to understand, and 
be in amity with, this counsellor, — this Divine mo- 
derator between the man and his heart, — this regu- 
lator of its wild impulses, — this calm, centralizing 
rebuker and restrainer of its excesses ! 



REMINISCENCES OF 



*^ There are more things in heaven and earth 
than are dreamt of in your philosophy ;" and I am 
persuaded that there is a very instructive and beau- 
tiful analogy to be observed in the two forces (the 
centripetal and centrifugal), whereby the planets 
are balanced and kept in their appointed orbits, 
and the two great agencies of human conduct ; viz. 
the rushing, onward will, and the centralizing, at- 
tracting power of the Holy Spirit of Truth, " a 
manifestation of which /^ we are told in Scripture, 
"is given to every man to profit withal." 

But few persons, it will be said, are sensible of 
this restraining power. Granted; yet that is no 
reason why they should not be so. They do not 
perceive its influence because there is a want of 
humble passivity in yielding to it. The will has 
become so imperious by long indulgence, and has 
so often and so violently torn itself away from its 
proper centre, that it runs on unchecked in its fro- 
ward, zig-zag course; sometimes exploding and 
wounding itself, and sometimes wounding others. 
Could the planets have also found a will of their 
own, they would probably have long since upset the 
universe. 

But to resume the point we were considering. 

There is nothing like a clear understanding of 
terms in acting upon a proposition. A man pro- 
poses to get on in life. 

Very good ; let him do so by all means, for no- 
thing can be more in unison with nature and reason 
than such a design. Everything gets on to its ap- 



1 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. ^ 

pointed end, and is intended to do so ; but as the 
man has to shape his own course to his own object j 
and is not governed by necessity as the seed in the 
ground is, to take uniform steps to a uniform endj 
but is left to adopt such measures as seem to his 
particular choice to look like getting on, it is surely 
of the last importance that he should have a most 
distinct and ever present comprehension of the 
exact meaning of the term, and of the sense which 
he himself attaches to it. 

Now, as far as I can judge, the gentleman whom 
I have just visited, considers " getting on" to mean 
getting up above other people ; possessing more 
splendid appointments, a more aristocratic acquaint- 
ance ; ignoring the customs, manners, and even the 
existence of those who have not ascended as high 
as himself in the ladder he is mounting; and the 
sitting down at last at the top of it, a pompous 
goose in almost everybody's eyes but his own. 

This is surely a " lame and impotent conclusion" 
to arrive at; but it is the legitimate result of for- 
getting the consideration of moral progress while 
calculating the problem of success, and of viewing 
things not as they are, but as they seem. 

Nothing can be called success but that which is 
accompanied with peace of mind ; and peace of 
mind, be it known to all the world, is not a thing 
that slides into the lot as an accident, a matter that 
may or may not be there, just as it happens. No, 
no — your true " getting on/' is first and firmly re- 
cognizing this ingredient of success as essential, 



10 REMINISCENCES OF 

and as that which must be got and grasped before 
all other getting. As a prehminary step to its ac- 
quisition, there seems to be no objection to take 
as an auxiliary, the principle of pride which our 
man John found so helpful ; only, it should be 
used on other grounds, and under another name. 
John's pride made him ashamed of remaining a 
plough-boy ; that was the way it acted with him, 
and it w^as a false way ; for there was nothing 
shameful in being a plough-boy. But the principle 
of shame in itself, is a true and right thing when 
properly understood and exercised, and leads more 
than any other to a real and enduring advancement 
in life. 

The sum and substance therefore, of what might 
be said to the man whose pride is his stepping 
stone, is this ; " If you w^ould rise to true nobility, 
which means the nobility of mind, establish it as an 
abiding principle of action, never to do anything 
that you would be ashamed of. And observe al- 
ways, the distinction between w^hat you. the abso- 
lute judge, are ashamed of, and what the inferior 
you^ the wayward will of self, would only be 
ashamed of, if it were known. The one is the 
king that rules in . the conscience, and must be 
treated with the reverence due to a king ; the other 
is a poor sneaking slave that w^ould do every thing 
that is mean and crooked, even to the robbing of 
an apple stall, if not kept in awe by the rightful 
monarch. " Reverence thyself," is a profound 
maxim of ancient wisdom, and be sure to keep up 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 11 

the reverence most, when most alone. Thus exer- 
cising your pride for the purpose for which it was 
bestowed, you will have its services on solid grounds, 
and will not exhaust the capacities of this useful 
agent in poor and paltry enterprizes. The real 
object for which you are working may still be self 
aggrandizement, but it will be the greatness of a 
w^ell regulated, peaceful, honourable interior, that 
you keep constantly in view as the condition in 
which you hope to sit down, and say with the old 
song, 

'^ My mind to me a kingdom is.'* 

It is an inconceivable blessing to understand the 
true nature of things ; for it is scarcely an exagge- 
ration to say, that far more than half the misery 
that desolates the world, arises from the profound 
ignorance of mankind respecting the intrinsic value 
of the objects which they covet, and spend their 
best energies upon. 

I do not say that these objects are without cer- 
tain attractions, or that they may not be very plea- 
sant to possess ; but I do say to every body, know 
them for what they are, and estimate them accord- 
ingly ; and do not make the fatal mistake of sup- 
posing that coronet, or coach and four, or any 
worldly matter whatever that may be dangling be- 
fore the mind's eye, has any relation to the mind's 
peace ; though, unhappily, it may have a very 
potent influence in promoting its poverty, in so far 
as its genuine worth and nobility are concerned. 



12 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER II. 




?T isj I imagine, universal with elderly 
people to believe that there never was 
any thing going on in the world in 
their young days like its doings (and, 
of course not better doings,) in their old ones ; yet, 
making every allowance for this disposition of ad- 
vancing life to suppose itself existing under a new 
and worse phase of affairs, I think I cannot be 
greatly wrong in designating the present era as 
certainly the most marked in alterations which are 
not always for the better, of any that has yet been 
chronicled in the page of history. 

One of the most striking, and to me, one of the 
most disagreeable of its characteristics, is the tone 
of dominion and intolerable assumption of supe- 
riority with which it seems to inflate certain per- 
sons, who, " in my young time,'* as the ancients 
say, would have been accounted little of. Now, 
one can bear pretty well to give place to distin- 
guished merit ; but distinguished assurance with- 
out the merit, is hard to put up with. Another of 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 13 

its marked and unpleasing features, is the over- 
powering hurry that attends it. Every body seems 
to be out of breath, and the greater part of the 
community even panting from the chase of some- 
thing or another which all but themselves consider 
as the mere phantoms of imagination. Their ob- 
servers and censurers have no time, however, to 
stop and set them right ; for they are themselves 
also engaged in hunting, for nothing, probably, 
more real ; but that is as it may be. " Only get 
on," they say, "and get off; and don't block up 
the way and lose time in talking." 

As for the old proverb of " a nine day's wonder," 
that is extinguished and done with. Nobody spends 
nine days now in thinking about any thing. All is 
action, noise, and running about ; and the whole 
world seems to be much under the influence of the 
same wild impulses apd thirst for sensation which 
beset a parcel of schoolboys just broken loose from 
their lessons and got out into the play-ground. 

A great part of this restlessness and eager de- 
sire for enjoyment, is, I think, to be traced to the 
facility which is given to the indulgence of the 
will, by the new and extraordinary circumstances 
in which we are placed by the agency of steam in 
producing a cheap and rapid mode of transit from 
place to place, and from object to object. There 
never was a time in which a little money was so 
available in procuring a great deal of pleasure, and 
a great deal of excitement. Cheap postage too! 



14 REMINISCENCES OF 

what a quantity of agitation and eagerness to be 
^' up and doing," has that been the means of stirring 
up in many a mind, which, without the presence of 
such a ready facihty of following out its impulses, 
would have been content to fulfil its appointed lot 
in silence and obscurity. 

I am quite aware, and am ready to acknowledge, 
that cheap travelling and cheap postage are, in 
many respects, great benefits bestowed upon society; 
but like everything else, they have a reversed side, 
and one which, as it strikes me, is too much over- 
looked, I cannot but think that the danger which 
attends these advantages in a moral point of view, 
is almost wholly lost sight of, in the contemplation 
and pursuit of the plqpasure they afford. As I am 
quite of the opinion of Paley, who, speaking in an 
excellent common-sense sermon, of the natural dis- 
position of the heart to console itself for its mis- 
doings, by dwelling upon its good actions, proceeds 
to remark, that we need never spend time in medi- 
tating upon our virtues, for they may safely be left 
to take care of themselves ; and that safer and 
w^ser would it be to ponder upon our deficiencies, 
I think it would conduce more to right and profit- 
able views of things, if we dwelt less upon the ad- 
vantage which the present age afibrds in presenting 
us with facilities for doing as we like, and paused 
every now and then to consider how far the dotJig 
as we like is good for us. I do not seem to myself 
to be overstating the case when I say that more 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 15 

persons are made unhappy from possessing the 
means and ability to please themselves, than from 
any other cause whatever ; and that were it not for 
the inexorable force of circumstances which keeps 
the masses (to use a technical term) under the 
yoke, the world would be scarcely habitable by 
those who loved and sought for the blessings of 
peace and reflection. The simple fact is, that if 
human beings, even in an educated state, and 
trained by the discipline which intercourse with 
polished society enforces, are far more indebted for 
their good behaviour to the influence of artificial 
and conventional restraints, than to any intrinsi- 
cally valuable principles of self-control, what can 
be hoped in the way of moral regeneration by in- 
flating the minds of the multitude who do not know 
the meaning or the use of saying " no " to them- 
selves, with notions that the powers of nature, and 
the universe itself, are fast advancing to a condi- 
tion of obedience to the human will ; and that they 
themselves are progressing (how I hate that word !) 
to the throne on which man will find his legitimate 
resting place as the " monarch of all he surveys." 

These thoughts occurred to me this morning, as 
I was ruminating upon the contents of a little vo- 
lume of poetry which I had read last night, en- 
titled "Reverberations;" and which, though con- 
taining some sweet and pleasing thoughts, is marked 
throughout with an aspiring, self-admiring spirit, 
which, as much as in any treatise of its size I ever 



16 REMINISCENCES OF 

had the pleasure to read, bubbles up, and bubbles 
over, with notions of its being in the power of man 
to do whatever he pleases, not only with himself, 
but with the whole world. The author of it is ma- 
nifestly one of a school of teachers and preachers 
very rife at this time. A bold, earnest, declamatory 
class they are, who look for the beatification of 
humanity in the present life, and anticipate a return 
of the golden age, when every body is to live in 
love and unity with every body, and evil doings are 
to be quite at a discount. I am free to confess 
that I have no sympathy with any thing of the sort. 
I do not believe this world is fitted or designed for 
the exhibition of any thing but the continual strife 
of good and evil ; and however civilization and 
knowledge may advance, and human beings become 
enlightened, as they have been, and doubtless will 
continue to be, in respect to those matters which 
relate to their earthly condition, yet, in the far greater 
matters which concern their spiritual illumination 
and divine happiness, it is my belief that they will 
be, as to the greater part of them, just where they 
were, and what they were, since the creation. 
That is to say, they w^ill love the world, and the 
things of the world, and follow after them as the 
chief matters they have to follow ; and get and 
grasp as much and as many of them as they can, 
till death snatches their possessions away from 
them. 

Turning from the ideas which this book of " Re- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 17 

verberations" had excited, to the perusal of Emer- 
son's " Representative Men/^ from which, as from 
all that highly gifted person's productions, I can- 
not but derive both pleasure and instruction, I find 
just the same fault as in the other work, of setting 
up humanity in too exalted a point of view, and of 
overlooking many of its most painful and myste- 
rious, but at the same time, its most prominent 
characteristics. One would think, from some of 
Emerson's statements, that man had it in his power 
to become little less than an angel ; and that, but 
for this and the other obstacle, which an intrepid 
and right exercise of his will would remove, he 
might shine forth a sort of demi-god. And on this 
ground he takes his representative men, and exhi- 
bits them as models of this and the other form of 
excellence, which he assumes to be different modi- 
fications of the beauty of humanity. 

All this looks fine, but it is intrinsically false ; 
for the fact is, that excepting under one modifica- 
tion (that of faith in God), we are, by the strange 
necessity of the evil which is our own, and the very 
certain, though incomprehensible operation of the 
evil which is not our own, but by which we are 
frequently assailed, — such poor creatures, that, but 
for the help of our pride, we could never stand for 
a moment on any pedestal upon which our own, or 
the poetical fancy of any one else, might be disposed 
to place us. 

^' Just to think now," said I to myself, " of that 
Q 



18 REMINISCENCES OF 

distressing case of poor " reverting to a con- 
dition of morbid suffering of which a friend of 
mine not long since was the victim, and which, 
though occurring in an individual of remarkable 
mental power, was of so exceedingly puerile a cha- 
racter, that, but for the real misery it occasioned, 
one would have been disposed to meet, and treat it 
with contempt. 

I cannot well enter into any detail of this case, 
but as an illustration of it, and also of the opposi- 
tion which our mixed and marred condition offers 
to the attempts at deifying humanity, of which I 
conceive such writers as those to w^hom I have al- 
luded, to be suspected, I will give an extract from 
another author which bears upon the subject. 

" But besides natural terrors," he says,* " which 
may seize any body at first trial before they have 
hardened themselves by custom, there are others 
which gather like rust upon the imaginations of 
particular people, making them distrust their own 
senses, and afraid that some sudden impulse should 
drive them upon extravagant actions, though they 
have never yet done any such, and have the 
strongest intention to avoid them. I know a very 
sensible man who once scrupled to take a bank note 
into his hand, for fear he should throw it into the 
fire ; another, unwilling to go near a precipice lest 



* Tucker. See bis ** Light of Nature," chapter on For- 
titude. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 19 

he should have an inclination to throw himself 
down. I have heard of a lady that terrified herself 
when going a visiting, with a notion that she might 
tumble down on entering the room, or say some- 
thing very rude/' 

" I am apt to suspect," he goes on to say, " that 
there are more of these whimsies in the world than 
one hears of; for people are shy of betraying their 
foibles, and it is but by chance, after being very 
intimate, that one gets any such confession out of 
them. One cannot expect a remedy in this case 
so much from reason as from resolution, or rather, 
care and vigilance ; for authority grows by custom, 
and every power gathers strength by exercise." 

I am not myself altogether a stranger to these 
vague mental horrors, and I have found upon expe- 
rience, that the only way to overcome them, is to 
avoid all reasoning upon their folly, and very calmly 
to stand still, as it were, in spirit, and let them 
buzz about the mind, as one would let a fly buzz 
about the head and face ; and by and bye, like the 
fly, they will be off". But no one I apprehend, will 
say, that however childish and contemptible these 
mysterious assaults may be, they can be experienced 
without humiliation and pain. It may be contended 
perhaps, that they are of comparatively rare occur- 
rence ; but that is a somewhat hazardous assump- 
tion. Our author cautiously observes, that " he is 
apt to suspect that there are more of these whim- 
sies in the world than one hears of," — and he gives 



20 REMINISCENCES OF 

the cogent reason, " for people are shy of betraying 
their foibles ;*' — but I believe if the matter could 
be satisfactorily inquired into, it would be by no 
means rare to find persons more or less suffering jB{ 
from the sudden rush, and often the furious assault 
of wild impulses, which are so contrary to their 
real will and wishes, that it is impossible to suppose si 
them the offspring of either. ■ 

The passion of fear is potent in man, and not 
unnecessarily, or unwisely, considering the mass of 
evil influences both from within and from without, 
amidst which his lot is cast ; nor are those his safest 
teachers who would endeavour to avert his atten- 
tion from the humbling realities of his evidently 
lapsed condition. He may, unquestionably, elevate 
himself above many of the corruptions which are a 
part of his sorrowful heritage ; but not in the way 
of blinding his eyes to their existence; for there 
they are, and there they will be as part and parcel 
of the man, let philosophers dress him up how they 
like. But though they be there as part of the man, 
it may be in the same sense as the outer husk of 
the seed which we sow in the ground, is a part of 
the flower or plant which is to emerge from it. 
And here I must again make a quotation from the 
author to whom I have just referred; as he has a 
curious idea on this subject. 

" As one stage of our being,'^ he says, " is but 
preparatory to another, possibly we may, under the 
husk or shell of our outer bodies, carry a little 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 21 

inner being of a spiritual kind, which is at our 
death to be born into the spiritual world ; and that 
such as we are now making it by our particular 
habits and tempers, such will then be its nature, 
good or bad."* 

This idea strikes me as very instructive, and not 
by any means unsupported by Scripture ; for what 
can be the " inner man," the " new creature," &c., 
but somewhat of this kind? And as it is quite 
certain from the wisdom of God, as well as from 
the testimony of his dealings, that he gives to every 
created thing whatever is needful to its allotted 
condition, he cannot have left us destitute of the 
divine germ from which this holy nature is to be 
elicited. In fact, I believe that pious and thought- 
ful persons will, in general, be at no loss to observe 
and distinguish its agency within themselves ; for 
when the individual has by diligent and humble at- 
tention, acquired a habit of understanding the na- 
ture of his inner world, the difference is quite 
remarkable between what arises in the mind whilst 
in a passive, obedient, and receptive state, and what 
is worked out in the strength and impetuosity of 
self-will. I once saw this curiously but very for- 
cibly illustrated, by a gentleman of great sagacity, 
who was rather sharply lecturing a person for 
yielding to infirmity of purpose and general insta- 
bihty. " Your mind is hot," said he, " with per- 

* Tucker in his ** Light of Nature." 



22 



REMINISCENCES OF 





petual friction ; and whatever is put into it, acts 
like butter in a frying pan. There is a vast hissing 
and sputteration, and much is expected to come of 
it, but the next minute beholds it melted away, and 
there is an end of it. See here,^' he continued, 
hastily drawing the following diagrams, *'here is 
the mind, as it ought not to be, wath all 
its thoughts, and purposes, and percep- 
tions, riddling through it as through a 
sieve. Here, on the contrary, is the 

mind as it ought to be, centralized and 
simple. This mind is always at home, 
and always therefore, ready for what- 
ever may be put into it. Consequently 
it draws knowledge to itself, and what it 
receives, it radiates in this simple and 
orderly way;" and he then drew this 
third figure. 

" But how am I to keep ' at home^ as you call 
it," said the poor delinquent, " when a thousand 
anxieties and vexations are goading me to seek 
after something to allay them ? ^' 

" In vain will you let your mind run out after 
help in times of tred^le," he replied ; " it is like 
putting to sea in a storm. Sit still, and feel after 
your principles, and if you find none that furnish 
you with somewhat of a stay and prop, and which 
point you to quietness and silent submission, de- 
pend upon it you have never yet learned Truth 
from the Spirit of Truth, whatever notions thereof 



II 




THOUGHT AND FEELING. 23 

you may have picked up from this and the other 
description of it." 

No lesson indeed of a practical kind (and all 
lessons ought to be practical) requires to be so 
often repeated, as that which enjoins upon the 
mind a state of passivity ;•= — for what an electric 
thing is it ! How does it dart forth after this and 
that, flitting from sweet to sweet (for it never wil- 
lingly tastes of bitter things), and " feeding itself 
without fear ! '' This is always dangerous, and 
commonly unprofitable. Most wise and safe there- 
fore, is that holy maxim, " Gird up the loins of 
your mind ;" — meaning, no doubt, that there must 
be a continual compression, and a driving back to 
its centre, of the force which wants to run out and 
spend itself in words and deeds ; and in giving 
form and strength to a thousand evil things. 

That is a remarkable Scriptural expression, " ive 
are in him that is truey Now, what is it to be in 
him that is true ? Is it not to be led by the Spirit 
of Truth — the great " I am ? " Is it not to feel a 
certain sureness, quite distinct from our natural 
state of being? For, in our natural, unchecked, 
and undisciplined state, we can scarcely be said to 
BE. We are constantly tossing and turning from 
one phantom of imagination to another, and " no- 
thing is, but what is not." 

Who is there that sets himself to the task of 
steadily watching his thoughts for the space of one 
hour, with the view of preserving his mind in a 



24 REMINISCENCES OF 

simple, humble, healthful condition, but will speedily 
discern in the multiform self-reflecting, self-ad- 
miring emotions, which, like locusts, are ready to 
" eat up every green thing in his land," a state as 
much opposed to simplicity and humility, as night 
is to day. This is our real state ; — the state in 
which we live and w^alk as in a vain show, and with 
just as much natural instinct and ease as we draw 
our breath. And is this a state to be overlooked 
as a negation, in the estimate we take of our actual 
condition, and which may be tossed out of the cal- 
culation as in no way influencing it ? And do we 
suppose that merely by willing to be good or great 
in thought or action, and choosing to take our 
moral possessions by a coup de main^ the matter 
can be accomplished, and w-e can know the truth 
as it respects either ourselves, or others, or things 
in general, by placing them in the position that is 
most congenial to our taste and fancy ? 

Truth, like every other precious thing, must be 
paid for. Before therefore, we receive the high 
flights either of poets or philosophers respecting 
the nature of man, it is good to inquire whether 
they have taken the only way to understand it 
rightly, by first, as far as possible, understanding 
its intense corruption, — its inordinate vanity and 
selfishness, as revealed to them in the depths of 
their own souls, — and its poor, pitiable liability to 
awful inroads of evil from agencies of which it 
knows nothing. 

" Have you sensibly experienced every day, per- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 25 

haps every hour," we are entitled to say to these 
glorifiers of their kind, " a pruning and excision of 
some sprout of self-will ? Have the vain, and 
commonly worse than vain progeny of your natural 
thoughts, desires, and imaginations, been so severely 
cross-examined that you can say you have faithfully 
separated the precious from the vile, and left no- 
thing standing in your interior building but what is 
honourable and true ? " 

To be sure, an acute observer, in one of his 
essays, remarks, that " it would be a sad thing in- 
deed, if one's ideal was never to go beyond one's 
own infirmities ; " * — and I suppose there may be 
some advantage on the side of taste and accom- 
plishment, in cultivating a capacity for fancy work 
in this respect. I look upon it however, with 
respect to its utility, to occupy much the same 
place as silk and satin in a draper's shop. It is 
wanted for dress occasions ; but for common wear 
and tear one looks for stouter and more enduring 
articles. Nor, let it be supposed, that these last 
are devoid of beauty. Everything is beautiful that 
is true ; and everything is ugly that is false ; and 
unsatisfactory as the affirmation may be, 1 think I 
should not be afraid to say, that every thoughtful, 
sincere person, who is sufficiently well-informed 
and experienced to perceive and understand truth, 
will*be ready to acknowledge, that those views of 
human nature which recognize it as chiefly under 

* Companions of my Solitude, p. 168. 



26 REMINISCENCES OF 

the influence of its own feebleness and corruption, Mi 
and on that account, in need of being- constantly 
directed to a humbling sense of its ignorance and 
danger, are far more likely to be safe and right 
views, than those which tend to exalt a creature 
whose intense vanity and self-love require a check, 
not to say a wound, at every turn. 

On the whole then, one would be inclined to say 
to young persons, keep a watchful eye over your- 
selves on the side of your disposition to self-exalta- 
tion. I was struck with a verse of truth and wis- 
dom, which I fell upon this very day. It occurs in 
the book of Ecclesiasticus. " O Lord, Father and 
God of my life, give me not a proud look, but turn 
away from thy servants always a haughty mind." * 
And though the counsel may seem cynical, I would 
further say to the young, be not very anxious about 
those enjoyments which result from the society of 
accomplished and intellectual persons. There is a 
subtle snare in everything that appeals to the mind 
on the side of its tendency to self-glorification, and 
its capacity for estimating talent; and we never 
think less of ourselves for being in association with 
gifted persons. Seek, and delight in that which 
meekens, rather than exalts your mind ; for this is 
the thing to wear well. Silks and satins are holi- 
day things. 

- 

* Ecclus. xxiii. 4. '* A giant-like mind," is the render- 
ing of the passage in the " Select Discourses" of Dr. John 
Smith. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



27 




CHAPTER III. 




FELT, while dressing this morning, 
a fretful, querulous influence upon 
my spirit, for which there was no ap- 
parent cause, and I said to myself, 
" I am in a very cranky sort of humour, I must 
take care what I am about to-day." 

These evil influences, I strongly suspect, are 
from some conjunction in the planetary system 
with which we are mysteriously connected ; and it 
did not appear to me at all absurd, when a phreno- 
logist once told me, that whenever he felt them, he 
called for his astrological almanack, and usually 
found it all explained ; " and then," said he, " I 
impose perfect silence upon myself for the rest of 
the day." 

I remember that Madame Du Defi^and in one of 
her letters observes, that " we must use address 
with ourselves, if we wish to avoid the most terrible 
sufiferings ;" and there is a great deal of wisdom in 
the idea, though with her, it only had the wisdom 
of this world for its origin. But even the wisdom 



28 REMINISCENCES OF 



•nn- ■ ' 



of this world discovers that there must be some 
sort of self-government established, or, like a run- 
away horse, the individual will speedily be out of 
breath, and in all probability come to serious hurt. 

The sort of self-government which mere w^orldly 
prudence suggests, is seldom however, of the right 
sort, for it is obtained chiefly through the dominion 
of pride ; that cruel task-master, who, like Pharaoh, 
orders his work to be done, be there proper mate- 
rials or not, for doing it. It is by concealing, not 
by healing wounds, that this stern agent supports 
the soul ; for, just as the Spartan boy having stolen 
a fox, hid it under his cloak, and suffered the beast 
to gnaw his very vitals rather than disclose the 
theft, so pride urges its votaries to endure being 
devoured by their interior evil, rather than suc- 
cumb to the acknowledgment of its presence and 
power. 

But to return to the subject with which I started, 
and to which, as a personal matter indeed, it would 
not be worth returning; but as from pretty long 
experience, it is one on which I fancy that I have 
a word of counsel to give, I may perhaps be par- 
doned for doing so. 

I have observed that these strange attacks of 
gloom and restlessness, are suddenly and wonder- 
fully alleviated by the interposition of any subject 
of pleasurable excitement ; and for a long period of 
my life, I opposed them after the fashion in which 
unwise parents quiet a fractious child, by giving it 



F 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 29 

a cake or a new toy ; that is to say, I went forth 
and bought something pretty or pleasant, or wrote 
a letter to, or made a call upon somebody or an- 
other ; in short, I made an effort to produce a feel- 
ing of agreeable excitement in the place of the 
ennui that disturbed and dissatisfied me. It was 
really a great many years before 1 discovered that 
it was no accidental or trifling disturbance of the 
moral system which these attacks of restlessness in- 
dicated; but that they were the necessary and 
natural accompaniments of a lapsed spiritual condi- 
tion, and that they existed in every human being, 
though modified, of course, by the strength or 
feebleness, and the subdued or indulged character 
of the will. Now my particular will, unhappily 
for myself, is a very strong one, and by the circum- 
stances in which my lot was cast, it was, during my 
best years, a very undisciplined one. 

I am quite aware, my dear reader, that it is bar- 
barous taste to talk so much about myself; but 
bear with my vanity, for the sake of the little bit of 
good I hope to do you. 

In regard to your bodily ailments, I make no 
doubt but you have felt how much more agreeable 
it was to lay them before your own medical friend, 
who is sure to have occasionally, just the same 
symptoms, and who will talk to you by the hour as 
to how they affect Aim, and how he combats with 
them, than to that strange, stiff, new doctor, who can 
spare no time to take the right measure of your ma- 



30 REMINISCENCES OF 

ladies, but who dismisses both you and them as fasti 
as he can, with a prescription, concerning w^hich,] 
nothing probably is so valuable as the fee you de- 
posit for it. In like manner then, I persuade my- 
self that you will wish to hear how /manage in the 
case of our mutual mental malady. 

Well then, as soon as I had breakfasted, I in- 
formed myself that there would be no going to 
town to-day to buy either books or music, for that 
neither were wanted. 

" But that beautiful little selection from Dr. 
Whichcote ? — you would meet with counsel in that 
to suit these workings of evil." 

" Should I not get as much help by acting 
against their influence, as by reading about how it 
is to be done ? " 

" Indeed, that's true ;" — and then the clouded 
atmosphere of my spirit being broken by a soft, 
mild ray of benignant light, I sat still under its 
calming influence, and gradually got refreshed and 
strengthened. 

The greater part of persons may be disposed to 
say, " well, and suppose you had dissipated your 
uncomfortable feelings by indulging yourself with 
the purchase of any little matter you had a fancy 
for, where would be the harm?" To which I 
reply, that it is not the mode in which this restless- 
ness of nature acts that is of so much importance, 
as the thing itself. People that can afi*ord it, may 
spend money no doubt, and heap together as many 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 31 

new things as they like ; and when there is no 
more interesting and important act to be performed, 
it is in this way I believe, that the appetite for ex- 
citement which springs from this disease of soul, 
obtains its daily food. But the disease itself is the 
dreadful thing, and that which is to be fought 
against ; for if it cannot be dormant at any time, — 
if, when there be no apparent cause for its mani- 
festation, it will still indicate its power by disturb- 
ing the mind with peevishness and dissatisfaction, 
and a covetous longing for this and the other no- 
velty, what is it likely to be when potent sources 
of agitation are brought to bear upon it, and some 
of the great chances of human life are at stake ? 
The ravening nature of self it is, which is the rob- 
ber and destroyer of all good, and the author of all 
misery. Never suppose that it is to be pacified by 
indulgence, and that "just this once' will suffice to 
humour it. It has no other language than " Give, 
give ;" and if you answer the cry to-day, assure 
yourself of being clamorously assailed with demands 
to do the same to-morrow. Cut the matter short 
with an unyielding No, and rely upon it, that your 
inner man will sweetly refresh you with a respon- 
sive "Yea, — Amen! even so, Father, if so it 
seemeth good in thy sight." 

I admit that the being able to say No to one's 
self is an exceedingly difficult acquirement; but 
considering how often the exercise of it is wanted, 
scarcely any other seems of so much importance ; 



32 REMINISCENCES OF 

for in point of fact, I suppose the not being able to 
say it, is the fruitful source of more misery and 
misconduct than any thing else. 

The great difficulty of life appears to be the art 
of sitting still. While there is anything to do, na- 
ture keeps up very well ; but when things are done, 
and there is nothing for it but to be patient and 
quiet, and make the best or bear the worst, of 
every succeeding hour or half-hour, just as they 
come, with the same bald, monotonous insignifi- 
cance in them, then it is that the selfishness and 
restlessness of poor fallen humanity is so painfully 
felt. Nothing, as it strikes me, more forcibly indi- 
cates our not being in our true and right condition, 
than this hungering after excitement, which no 
process of reasoning avails to subdue. One knows 
well enough that it is a wrong and false appetite, 
and that our duty is to be contented and at rest ; 
but knowledge alone will not aid us in this case. 
There must be a certain process pursued, which, if 
I were to simplify and condense into a direct and 
intelligible meaning, I would call a calm attention 
to the present moment, and a respect, so to speak, 
for the small and uninteresting details which the 
present moment brings with it, together with a con- 
stant reference to the will of our Heavenly Father. 
" I have set God always before me ; because he 
is at my right hand I shall not be moved." This 
view of the presence, help, and approbation of the 
Divine Being, and this alone, gives a dignity and 



I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 33 

purpose to every occupation, and does most un- 
questionably> so beautifully equalize the mind with 
a sense of truth, that while it operates, no weari- 
ness, no dissatisfaction, no restlessness can be ex- 
perienced. 

As soon as I felt disposed for reading, I took up 
Emerson's " Representative Men ;" and falling 
upon this remark, " Evil, according to old philo- 
sophi/, is good in the making,*' — I felt revived and 
comforted in thinking that all the evils which op- 
pressed me, may be, and I confidently believe are, 
the necessary working and fermenting of interior 
corruption, before the dregs settle down, and the 
good separates itself from them. There is no great 
effect in the natural world but seems to be accom- 
panied by a preparatory work of strife and pain ; 
and, beyond all question, vast conflicts must be en- 
dured before there is any regeneration in the moral 
one. 

There is, as it strikes me, a wonderful chain of 
truth wrapt up in that passage of Scripture relative 
to Elijah. " And behold the Lord passed by, and 
a great and strong wind rent the mountains and 
brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but 
the Lord was not in the wind ; and after the wind 
an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earth - 
quake ; and after the earthquake a fire ; but the 
Lord was not in the fire ; and after the fire, a still 
small voice;" a figurative mode of teaching, by 
which I learn that, before the soul can come under 

D 



34 REMINISCENCES OF 

the influence of the meekness of wisdom, therej 
must be a work of slaying and subduing upon the 
fierce elements of the earthly, selfish, sensual na- 
ture. These once dispersed, the pure, gentle 
stirrings of the new-born, divine nature, have an 
opening made for their manifestation. But then 
we must remember that this work of preparation in 
the soul is done after the manner of storm, and 
tempest, and fire. The vanities and idols of the 
natural man must be torn up by the roots, and 
shaken to their foundation by the earthquake ; — 
the chafi'y imaginations must be consumed by fire; 
and, for the most part, we must be crushed, grieved, 
humiliated, and even terrified, by the war of our 
own wild elements of being, before we can be sub- 
dued into that state of passivity in which, not 
notionally, but sensibly and experimentally, w^e be- 
come as clay in the potter's hand. 

It is of great importance I may here observe, so 
to order our habits of life as to inure ourselves to 
tediousness and monotony ; for it is through all 
these influences so disagreeable to nature, that 
strength of mind and a capacity to endure, are 
formed. People can generally find patience for 
great and inevitable exigencies ; for the mind, 
knowinof in such cases that it has no choice, makes 
a virtue of necessity, and is quiet. But the diffi- 
cult thing to bear, is sameness, and dr3'ness, and 
those every day similarities which w^e call insipid, 
only because we do not know how to use them 
ariobt. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 35 

The company for instance, of uncongenial indi- 
viduals ; — what a common trial is this ! If we had 
but so and so for our comrades in the journey of 
life we say, or even if we had nobody, so that we 
could but get rid of some one whose presence is 
uncongenial to us, — what very different, and what 
much more amiable people we should be ! Our 
tempers would be better — our habits would be more 
courteous and agreeable — our lives in every respect, 
would be happier. 

But this is a great fallacy. The influences that 
surround us in our childhood and earliest youth 
indeed, are likely to give the temper and feelings a 
right or wrong bias ; but speculations as to what 
we should or should not have been, do not visit 
the mind till its character is formed ; and when 
once this is done, be assured it matters but little 
where, and with whom, your lot is cast. Your 
moral being like your natural, has come to its full 
growth, and will be developed no further in that 
respect. I am far, however, from saying, that the 
society of uncongenial and froward people is not a 
great evil ; still I am inclined to think, that where 
the previous training has been what it ought to be, 
this evil, will, as Emerson says, turn out to be 
" good in the making ;" — inasmuch as it gives a 
trial and scope for the exercise of many precious 
qualities, which can only be elicited through the 
pressure of pain and contrariety. 

Who is patient — who is humble — who is prayer- 



36 REMINISCENCES OF 



)eingl 
nted I 

an/1 ' ' 



ful — who is self-denying, if it be not the being 
whose natural craving for joy is perpetually blunted 
by adverse circumstances, and who, fretted and 
opposed at every effort he makes to satiate it out- 
wardly, is driven to turn inward, and fall back 
upon the bosom of Him, who, in every sort of 
aifliction only says with a more distinct and audible 
voice, " Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to 
the waters; — come, buy wine and milk without 
money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend 
your money for that which is not bread, and your 
labour for that which satisfieth not ? " Ah where- 
fore ! let every wounded heart reply ! 

I would also say, value greatly, and exercise as 
often as possible, small efforts of self-denial. " By 
little and little the mulberry leaf becomes satin ;" — 
tmd no one can understand prior to experience, the 
amazing power of small efforts constantly and stea- 
dily repeated. Man would gallop, or, if possible, 
fly to the completion of his purposes. He would 
build Rome in a day, and scale the Alps in an hour. 
Babel, in short, has never ceased to have its artifi- 
cers ; neither has the Providence of God ever 
ceased to throw down every thing that such work- 
men raise, and to show them that what he will have 
to be raised and standing, is effected in quite an- 
other way, — and a way, moreover, totally incon- 
ceivable to the natural man, from the very minute- 
ness, humility, and simplicity of its quiet grada- 
tions. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 37 

We may I believe, rely upon it, that it is not 
from reflection or study, or ** heaping up to them- 
selves teachers," that persons become the subjects 
of moral renovation ; but from small endeavours, 
suggested by small internal monitions, about the 
small moment just before them. 

I have such strong faith in the power that 
attends a habit of confining the attention to the 
present moment, that I should be disposed to make 
it the ground-work of every system of education. . 
Have a work for every moment, and mind the 
moment's work. Surely, if some such principle as 
this were at the root of our teachings, it must be 
greatly helpful in delivering the mind from that 
visionary state of thinking wherein it is always 
making images, and building castles in the air, and 
being suffered to stray and run about as it likes, is 
sure to be taken captive by a troop of idle fancies 
that devour its noble capabilities, and reduce it to 
a dry and withered condition, in which it necessa- 
rily becomes brittle, and soon irritated, soon dis- 
composed, and the victim of futile impatience with 
everything and everybody, oftentimes it does not 
know why. 

Another great aid to the establishment of inter- 
nal peace, is a strong and steady habit of resisting 
impulse ; and it is one which will necessarily grow 
out of that other good one of minding the present 
moment's business, and having a business to mind. 
Impulsive people are, almost always, idle and va- 



38 REMINISCENCES OF 



' in- ■ 
ome I 
ved. f 



cant-minded ; and it is curious to observe how i 
stantaneously many of the working classes become 
impulsive when the necessity for labour is removed, 
There is more drunkenness and mischief on a 
Saturday night and Sunday, than on any other 
days of the week, in the lower orders of society, 
just because having nothing to do and no mental 
or moral culture to show them the danger of im- 
pulse, and point them to the duty of resisting it, 
.they yield to that natural hunger for agreeable 
sensation, which, though exercised upon different 
objects, is the same thing in its nature, whether in 
prince or peasant; and which manifests itself from 
the cradle to the grave, in hasty jumps and jerks of 
fancy, to get, or to do something, which it is a 
thousand chances to one will produce us more or 
less of mischief and misery when it is got, or done. 
" But, may we not sometimes be visited by a 
sudden impulse to do a good action ? " it may be 
asked — and I v/ill not say that we should be right 
in resisting a kindly prompting of any sort. But 
this I will say, that, for the most part, every thing 
that is to be good for any thing, must gi^ow ; and 
that when we act from impulse, even though it may 
seem to be a good impulse, there is generally a 
secret sense of crudeness and rawness in the deed. 
It seems to be plunged into existence before it is 
I'ipe; and is very seldom unaccompanied by after- 
regret for not having waited a little longer for its 
maturing. You may always indeed suspect error 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 39 

when you are in a hurry to act ; for, wherever 
there is eagerness to follow a sudden suggestion, 
there is more than a probability of making mistakes. 
Scarcely any thing that is needful or proper to be 
done requires any haste in the performance of it, 
because haste always betokens some degree of in- 
sufficiency. We shall almost invariably find, in 
reviewing our past experience, that those actions 
which we have discovered to be wrong and painful 
in their consequences, — everything, in short, in our 
moral history of which we have cause to say, 
^^ would that it had not happened !^^ have been 
the result of our having rushed rather than entered 
into them, and which we consequently undertook 
in a hasty, inconsiderate, and confused manner. 
There may, certainly, be cases in which a strong 
assurance of being in the right, and a fear of irre- 
solution in adhering to it, will urge us to great 
promptitude in action. But even here, the right 
thing will be more rightly done under a process of 
patience in waiting for the right time. 

Wait ! — Wait ! — Ah, those two words, what sal- 
vation is in them ! You can never do better than 
act them out at least once every hour. Observe 
also, how hasty impulses subside of themselves, if 
not shaken and jarred into sustained vibrations by 
the furious will ; and you will soon perceive the in- 
estimable value of being still and motionless as 
death, under their first concussions. 

There are a few words at the close of the 4th 



40 REMINISCENCES OF 

chapter of Proverbs, which comprise inexhaustible 
truths — I select a few of them. 

" Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it 
are the issues of life." 

" Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine 
eyelids look straight before thee." By which pre- 
cept I conceive myself directed to let my inward 
eye be steadily fixed upon the immediate moment 
before me, which is my only concern, because it is 
my only reality. 

" Turn not to the right hand, nor to the left; 
remove thy foot from evil." Watch your way then 
dear friend, as a cautious traveller ; and don't be 
gazing at that mountain or river in the distance, 
and saying "how shall I ever get over them?" 
but keep to the present little inch that is before 
you, and accomplish that in the little moment that 
belongs to it. The mountain and the river can 
only be passed in the same way ; and when you 
come to them you will come to the light and strength 
that belong to them. 

The task is difficult and perpetual, but we do not 
engage in it unaided; for '' there is a spirit in man, 
and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them 
understanding ;^' and the chief business of a wise 
man's life, is to aim at distinguishing this divine 
inspiration in the depths of his own soul. It is 
very near to us, and the more humbly, and quietly, 
and constantly we wait upon it, the more distinctly 
it manifests its own light and our darkness. It is 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 41 

to be perceived, more commonly, in a way of re- 
straint than of propulsion ; the will requiring rather 
to be checked than stimulated, because '' the way 
of man is froward and strange," and totally different 
from God's way. This holy Guide must therefore 
be sought in the way of the cross ; that is, in the 
way that crosses and opposes the sudden, eccentric, 
and vehement way of the creature. '' The prepa- 
ration of the heart in man, is of the Lord ;" — and 
all that calms, silences, and meekens it, is a part 
(and a great part too) of that divine preparation. 




42 REMINISCENCES OF 





^CHAPTER IV. 

"HEN I consider the praiseworthy 
efforts that many good people are 
making for the benefit of their fel- 
low creatures, and especially when 
I am asked to participate in their exertions, I am 
always sorry to stand aloof from the work; but 
there is a secret consciousness in my mind of the 
futility, not to say folly, of some of these virtuous 
doings, which would render it a labour of deceit 
instead of benevolence, were I to unite in them. 

The purposes and projects of the " Peace Society" 
are of this kind. In vain would I try to persuade 
myself that so obviously right a thing as the aboU- 
tion of war, ought to be advocated and laboured 
for, with earnest and unintermitting zeal. It does 
not admit of a question that war is a very dreadful 
evil. But I cannot divest myself of a feeling, that 
to hope, and expect, and w^ork for its abolition as 
a practicable thing, is about as reasonable a matter 
as to long and labour for the abolition of evil alto- 
gether. For what is war, but one of the branches 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 43 

and sprouts in which the root of evil manifests 
itself ? and until you can eradicate the root, in vain 
will you attempt to lop off the branches. Besides, 
the question involves in it the subject of self-de- 
fence ; which, after all the demonstrations that can 
be made about it from pen or platform, will, from 
the force of instinct, prompt people to act natu- 
rally and necessarily in the v/ay of warfare against 
whatever dangerously assails them. 

Just fancy the case of a foreign invasion (Heaven 
send it may never be more than fancy !), and our 
lives in jeopardy as we sat by our firesides ! Can 
we believe that the most zealous advocates or the 
most active labourers in the Peace question, would, 
at that time, and under those circumstances, be 
disposed to act out their principles, and, as Sir Ro- 
bert Peel once said, " stand with their arms folded, 
and quietly wait to have their throats cut," rather 
than make use of any w^eapons to defend them- 
selves ? Their quietness on such an occasion, I am 
inclined to think, would greatly depend on their 
being satisfied that a stout troop of soldiers was 
near at hand to protect them. 

I have often wished, when I have seen such an 
outlay of good will and good feeling lavished upon 
purposes that do not seem to touch us as indivi- 
duals, that these excellent people could hit upon 
some project for the moral advancement of their 
species, that had a guarantee of success in its na- 
ture ; and in which, there could be no excuse for 



44 REMINISCENCES OF 



But J I 
ical, ■ 



not joining heart and hand in helping them, 
it strikes me that there wants something practical 
— something real, — something that may be used as 
a principle for every day wear and tear, in their 
objects. For instance — there is a general spirit of 
goodness and virtue in the following " Pledge of 
the League of Universal Brotherhood;" but of 
what daily, sterling use is it to the taker of it, as a 
practical principle ? 

" Believing all war to be inconsistent with the spirit of 
Christianity, and destructive of the best interests of man- 
kind, I do hereby pledge myself never to enlist, or enter 
into any army or navy, or to yield any voluntary support or 
sanction to the preparation for, or prosecution of, any war, 
by w^homsoever, or for whatsoever proposed, declared, or 
waged. And I do hereby associate myself with all persons 
of whatever country, condition, or colour, who have signed, 
or shall hereafter sign, this pledge, in a League of Univer- 
sal Brotherhood ; whose object shall be to employ all legi- 
timate and moral means for the abolition of all war, and all 
the spirit, and all the manifestations of war throughout the 
world; for the abolition of all restrictions upon international 
correspondence and friendly intercourse, and of whatever 
else tends to make enemies of nations, or prevents their 
fusion into one peaceful brotherhood ; — for the abolition of 
all institutions and customs which do not recognize and 
respect the image of God, and a human brother in every 
man, of whatever clime, colour, or condition of humanity."* 

Now let us suppose^ that instead of this pledge 
not to do what we may never be asked to do, and 



* ** Bond of Brotherhood," — conducted by Elihu Burritt, 
No. 13, for Oct. 1851. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 45 

which relates to contingencies of comparatively 
rare occurrence, a league of brotherhood were 
formed for the promotion of Truth and Probity, 
and a pledge to some such effect as this were 
offered for the signature of all who desired to be- 
long to it ? 

" Believing all falsehood to be inconsistent with the 
spirit of Christianity, and destructive of the best interests 
of mankind, I do hereby pledge myself never wilfully and 
deliberately to give utterance to a conscious lie, or to yield 
to any selfish desire of promoting my worldly interest by 
the practice of any sort of dishonesty. And I do hereby 
associate myself with all persons of whatever country, con- 
dition or colour, who have signed, or shall hereafter sign 
this pledge, in a League of Universal Truth and Probity ; 
whose object shall be, by personal example and advice, to 
lift up a testimony against all falsehood and fraud, whether 
in commercial dealings, or those which occur in the private 
and social relations of individuals.'' 

This suggestion to take a pledge to speak the 
truth, I once ventured to make in an article that I 
inserted in a monthly periodical belonging to a 
small and peculiar religious sect, not anticipating 
the hubbub that 1 was about to raise. Several 
persons were quite angry ; and one individual an- 
swered it very fiercely in the same publication. I 
ought to state that my remarks on that occasion, 
did not relate to the Peace Society, but to the Tee- 
total, for which I have much more respect as being 
more practical, and, as far as it is operative, cer- 
tainly of great value ; and I think now^, that I was 



46 REMINISCENCES OF 

wrong in approaching it with any other sentiments 
than those of cordial sympathy and approbation. 

Still, it was not what I said respecting Tee-total- 
ism, that gave half the offence which the suggestion 
about signing a truth pledge excited. " It was 
quite foreign to the purpose,'* — some said ; — ^* Irre- 
levant and futile," — ^others ; — " Childish and incon- 
sequent," &c. &c. In short, I do not know if I 
had deliberately devised something to disturb and 
exasperate mankind, how I could have succeeded 
better. 

There is something curious, but at the same time 
painful in observing the general resistance of hu- 
man nature to any close dealing with truth. It is 
the rarest thing in the world to meet with those 
who love it, — or who love the people that love it ; 
— though there is something in every heart that 
involuntarily recognizes and approves of its exhibi- 
tions when they do not come too close ; — when 
they do, everybody gets out of the way, as they 
would from an exploding firework. 

This general distaste to truth as a personal, prac- 
tical thing, arises, I suppose, from an unwillingness 
to go into the depth of the heart, and bring up 
from thence its realities ;— a reluctance which is 
natural enough, when we cannot but be conscious 
how very painful, and how very humiliating, some 
of those realities would prove ; and hence, it is 
easier to undertake almost any act of virtue ra- 
ther than that which calls upon us to examine and 
to prove our own selves. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 47 

It is on this account probably, that we have such 
a multitude of associations for a variety of good 
works, which keep us on the outside of ourselves 
(so to speak), and which I do not say are other- 
wise than praiseworthy and beneficial in their proper 
place, — but to which we ought not to give the first 
place, for the first place in all righteous acts is due 
to individual, and moral improvement. " When 
thou art converted^ strengthen thy brethren J* 
Now, no persons can be called converted, or can 
be in a condition to do any real moral good to 
others, who are not, as far as the frailty of huma- 
nity permits, truthful, honest persons. It will be 
said, probably, " and how do you know, and why 
do you presume to suppose, that the individuals 
who are the associated promoters of the public 
good, are otherwise than truthful and honest ? " 

I might reply to this, by quoting a striking 
Spanish proverb which says, " the Canon is good, 
hilt the Chapter is naughty^^' and remark, that, 
although an individual, here and there, may be sin- 
cere, upright, and on the whole, to be called good, 
yet you will scarcely find any corporate body upon 
the face of the earth, in which corruption does not 
preponderate, and keep down whatever is sincere 
and upright within it. But, as I take this proverb 
to allude to associated bodies of quite a different 
nature from the Peace Society, I readily acknow- 
ledge that I neither know, nor suppose the mem- 
bers of that corporate body, to be any other than 



48 REMINISCENCES OF 

strictly truthful and honest in their word and deal- 
ings ; — but this I know, and everybody who puts 
forth a finger in the cause of truth, as truth, may 
know the same, — that there is in human nature a 
conscious shrinking from it, which I believe to be 
not only one of the greatest faults, but the cause 
also, of the greatest faults of every human being. 

It is quite curious how this fact (for it is a fact 
reader, you may depend upon it) operates in the 
afiairs of life, and how the consciousness of its ex- 
istence is manifested at every turn. Many circum- 
stances in my own experience have shown me this, 
but none, I think, with more annoyance, not to say 
disgust, than some which attended my writing an 
occasional article in a certain popular periodical. 
Whenever the witness vjithiyi, told me th^t what I 
had written was honest, faithful, and applicable to 
the conscience of those I addressed, I scarcely re- 
member one instance in which the article was not 
returned to me ; and I had to perceive, that, just 
in proportion as I had satisfied myself in this respect, 
I had dissatisfied the Editor ; and I also found, 
that if he did accept my contribution, he almost 
always expunged from it the sentence, or sentiment, 
on which I had depended for making the strongest 
impression. At length I was told, in so many 
words, that the question was not whether my con- 
tribution was clever or good, but, whether it was 
suitable for the periodical. So when it came to 
this, and I found that when I sat down to write, I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 49 

was not to let my thoughts and feelings flow natu- 
rally, or follow out any subject that was fitted to 
appeal to the deep moral feeUngs of the reader, and 
so to present this or the other view of matters, as 
a lengthened and varied experience together with 
the exercise of those natural gifts which the good- 
ness of God might, perhaps, have bestowed upon 
me, would suggest; — but I must be perpetually 
putting to myself the King's question in Hamlet, 
" Art sure there's no offence inH f and turn and 
twist things so as that they should look agreeable, 
and give no unpleasant jar to anybody's feelings ; 
— when the matter was thus simplified, I said to 
myself, "have nothing more to say to it, but be 
thankful to God that you are not driven to earn 
your bread by literary exertions, seeing, that to be 
generally acceptable, they can only be made in one 
way and after one pattern, and that the pattern 
which has the least of truth in it." 

"And who are you," somebody or another will 
here inquire, " who take upon yourself to set up 
for being better than other people, and who claim 
an exemption from their liabilities to fall into temp^ 
tation ? " 

I am a very frail creature, dear reader, and in 
most respects, one who ought to be amongst the 
last to set up for a teacher of any thing ;-^but it 
has pleased the wisdom and goodness of God, who 
makes our own mistakes and miseries to be our 
roost efficient schoolmasters, to impress me long, 



50 REMINISCENCES OF 

and deeply with a conviction that the knowledgi 
and possession of truth is all that a rational and 
responsible being has to seek for. 

" And do you suppose that other people besides 
yourself have not the same conviction ? " I shall be 
asked, as I have been a thousand times before. 

And then I shall reply, " Of course they have," 
as I have replied a thousand times ; — and then I 
shall say to myself as I have also done many thou- 
sand times, — " but I don't know where these people 
live. I know only, that whether I be right or 
wrong, — whether it be the morbidness of my own 
mind or not, — whatever in short, be the cause, — I 
can get nobody to agree with me when I think and 
say, as I believe I shall go on to think and say to 
the end of the chapter, that nothing seems to me 
to be so rife, nothing so acceptable, nothing so 
much cherished, though perhaps in many cases un- 
consciously, — as lying vanities ; — and that, for the 
most part, there is nothing of which people are so 
willingly ignorant, as truth. 

They may be constrained by the force of circum- 
stances, now and then perhaps, to deal with it ; — 
but they take hold of it just as they would take 
hold of a nettle. They patter loatter about the 
surface, and sting themselves with the little paltry 
details of this and that, and how this and that will 
affect their small personal interests ; whereas, if 
they were to grasp it as a whole ^ they would escape 
uninjured. 



dge 1 
and I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 51 

But it is time that I should put an end to this 
dissertation, for which I anticipate that I shall get 
a trimming. The critic who read me a homily- 
respecting a former work of mine, and reproved me 
for '^keeping all the good in it so tenaciously for 
myself and who " hoped when he met me again, 
to find my wisdom less self-centred,^^ *— -will think 
I have little benefited by his rebuke. 

But this is not exactly the case. On the con- 
trary, I am quite conscious (and by this particular 
observation of the Reviewer the consciousness is 
deepened) that I am by nature and habit, and the 
unfortunate circumstance of living in a condition 
which meets with little opposition from the collision 
of other minds and wills, too prone to state my sen- 
timents in the imperative mood ; — which should not 
be, and I am sorry for it. But it seems to me, that 
in all writing, and talking, and preaching, and 
every thing else that appeals to that part of our 
nature which is supposed to understand and ap- 
prove of truth, it is not the manner, but the matter, 
that is the question. To be sure, the advocates of 
truth should not, by any means be fierce or an- 
gry ; for to be in the right, and at the same time 
to be angry, is like enveloping the form of the Me- 
dicean Venus in the skin of the tiger. 

Truth, though an absolute, is at the same time an 

* Review of " Visiting my Relations" in the Gentleman's 
Magazine for Jan, 1852. 



52 REMINISCENCES OF 



exceedingly meek and modest thing, and withdraws 
from all hasty and denunciatory ways of bringing 
out its results. It radiates its still and perfect 
beauty like the dawn of day, silently and gradually; 
and it is necessary to remember this, when, in the 
strength of nature's fire, and a mighty idea of set- 
ting people to rights, we are for seizing hold of this 
gentle guide and endeavouring to make it carry 
our blazing torch instead of its own soft illumina- 
tion. 

It is indeed quite wonderful, and as humihating 
as it is wonderful, to observe, that however justly 
persons may think upon, and however ardently they 
may seek truth in the abstract, yet in many of the 
circumstances of life, they may act as though they 
did not know wrong from right. The fact is that 
there is something as widely different between the 
reading and approving of truth as set before us in 
a book, and the practical application of it in the 
circumstances of life, as there is in beholding and 
admiring in a picture the representation of a ship 
in a storm, and being ourselves in a vessel that was 
actually so situated. 

This disproportion between our best conceptions 
and our practice, is extremely humiliating, but it 
ought not to disturb our conviction of what is mo- 
rally true ; for that must ever remain as inflexible 
as the results of the multiplication table; and a 
vast matter it is, to establish this belief of the in- 
fallibiUty of moral truths, as an ^ver-present, ever- 



aws 1 1 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 53 

operative principle. To have it fixed upon our 
minds for instance, with just as much faith in its 
unerring consequences as that two and two make 
four — that a lie, or any deceitful, dishonest prac- 
tice, will, sooner or later bring us to loss, and that 
it must do so in the nature of things ; — that all un- 
due self-indulgence, all harsh and injurious conduct 
towards others, all treachery, and every act or 
thought that puts us to shame, and which we should 
be ashamed of making known, have as surely their 
natural and necessary consequence of chastisement 
wrapt up in them, as the seed of corn has the future 
wheat hid in its bosom, — what a useful piece of 
moral arithmetic would this prove ! In regard to 
the particular subject of self-control, it is quite 
striking, and deeply instructive to observe, that the 
merest worldling, and even the most depraved of 
human kind, are sensible of the necessity of so7ne 
restraining influence upon their will, and as neces- 
sity prompts, they learn how to acquire and use it; 
just as the poor and illiterate get a way of their 
own of casting up their accounts, and of knowing 
how to keep themselves from being cheated. But 
in both cases, their ignorance of the absoluteness 
and simplicity of any rule, occasions the work to be 
one of great difficulty and confusion. 

Now how does a man grow rich? Not by 
avoiding to run into lavish indulgences and a large 
outlay to support them ; but by watching carefully 
against small and unnecessary expenses, which he 



54 REMINISCENCES OF 

knows well enoug-h, form the canker that eats away 
the core of his substance. Even so, how does a 
man grow wise? Not by poring over stores of 
books, or spoiling good quires of paper in writing 
them ; but by taking note of the little words, and 
little thoughts, and little feelings, and little actions, 
that occupy his daily and hourly life ; and which, 
small as they are, make him just what he is — a wise 
man, or a fool. 

I perceive, in looking over what I have written, 
that I have got a great way from the Peace Society 
with which I started. I can only plead guilty to a 
sad habit of wandering in my discussions ; Vvhich, 
as I am rather too old to correct, I must throw 
myself upon my reader's clemency to pardon. 




THOUGHT AND FEELING. 55 





CHAPTER V. 

DO not know anything that occasions 
to sensitive people more vexation, re- 
gret, humiliation, and innumerable 
other painful sensations, than a pro- 
pensity which they almost always possess, to talk 
and lay open their hearts to everybody who is dis- 
posed to listen to them. 

In Moore's Life of Lord Byron, this feature of 
his character is strikingly alluded to, as what the 
biographer calls '' a susceptibiUty of immediate im- 
pressions." He then quotes the following passage 
from the Life of Tasso : — 

" There are some persons of a sensibility so 
powerful, that whoever happens to be with them, 
is, at that moment to them the world. Their hearts 
involuntarily open, — they are prompted by a strong 
desire to please, and they thus make confidants of 
their sentiments, people whom in reality they re- 
gard with indifference." 

Of this statement, I only question their being 
prompted by *^ a strong desire to please ;' for I 



56 REMINISCENCES OF 

am afraid this incontinence of speech does not arise 
from any thing so amiable. I am rather inchned 
to consider its root to be vanity, which naturally 
produces egotism. Vain people are also, for the 
most part, extremely self-indulgent, and extremely 
unconcentrated, from the habit they have acquired 
of amusing themselves with acting dramas, wherein 
" I by myself, I," is, of course, the all-conquering 
hero. 

And now my dear reader, don't begin to scold, 
and repeat the old query of who are you ? and so 
on ; for, to let you into a secret (" no man" as a 
certain writer observes, " being so confidential as 
w^hen he is addressing the whole world,"*) it is just 
because I am myself in a great degree a participa- 
tor in, and have often been a sufferer from, this dis- 
position to chatter and rush upon hasty confidences 
about myself and my afi'airs, that my thoughts have 
occasionally been exercised with an endeavour to 
trace it to its source ; and though the result is far 
from complimentary or agreeable, I can only recog- 
nize it as proceeding from the subtle operations of 
vanity; the most secret and unsuspected, but at 
the same time, one of the busiest of our internal in- 
fluences. It is one however, which of all others 
is the soonest mortified and silenced. You cannot 
easily wound a proud man, for it is next to impos- 
sible to put him to shame, and quite so, on this side 

* Friends in Council, vol. 1, p. 47. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 57 

of his nature, inasmuch as he never lays himself 
open by any disclosures relative to his thoughts and 
feelings. But oh, how easy — how ridiculously easy 
is it to make a vain person appear poor and con- 
temptible I more particularly when he unguardedly 
gives the reins to a strong propensity to talk about 
himself; and vain people seldom talk about any 
thing else. In fact they cannot. Their " suscep- 
tibility of immediate impressions," as Mr. Moore 
calls it^ and to which definition might be added 
their indulged delight in exciting them, necessarily 
produce pain or pleasure ; both of w^hich sensations 
are personal things, and powerful things; and 
though not equally difficult to be borne in secrecy 
and silence, are both likely to be too much for the 
person whose natural vehemence of temperament 
has never been broken by early and somewhat sharp 
discipline. Such people cannot bear to be uncom- 
fortable; and the propriety or necessity of being 
silent, is discomfort to them ; so they run for pre- 
sent ease, or for present enjoyment, into the 
strangest statements, often to the strangest hearers ; 
sometimes getting a needful rebuke before their 
disclosures are ended, by being compelled to per- 
ceive that the confidants they have chosen, are sur- 
prized and confused, rather than gratified by their 
communications. 

Scarcely any kind of punishment can be sharper 
than this sort of wondering contempt from, per- 
haps, the contemptible. They are never so how- 



58 REMINISCENCES OF 

ever, under these circumstances ; for the babbling ^ i 
indiscretion of which we are speaking, helps to lift 
them out of their natural inferiority ; inasmuch as 
it never fails to exalt the feeble, just in proportion 
as it depresses the strong. " Even a fool," says 
Solomon, " when he holdeth his peace is counted a 
man of understanding ;'* and the running into many 
words will frequently cause a superior person to 
prove the justice of the proverb, and show to great 
disadvantage by the side of some silent, pompous 
simpleton. 

Scarcely any one repents of not having spoken ; 
and there is wonderful wisdom in these words of 
Mr. Carlyle-^ — "In all thy perplexities, do thou 
thyself but hold thy tongue for one day ; on the 
morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and 
duties, — and how much rubbish have those two 
mute workmen, silence and concealment, swept 
away ! '^ 

I have been led into these thoughts at this par- 
ticular juncture, because it happens to be the be- 
ginning of a new year ; and in looking back upon 
the many foolish things which I have said and done 
during the last, I promise myself to try and be 
wiser for the next. 

How curious it is that we always seem to gather 
strength from beginnings ! And how strong we 
are for a little while, till something of the old 

* In his '' Sartor Resartus." 



f 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 59 

leaven like a great blot of ink on a new writing 
book, mars the fair page of our good doings, and 
then there is a reaction and we are all in despair, 
and upon the point of not caring how many more 
blots are made. But this must not be. We must 
turn over a new leaf every day, and be always be- 
ginning, — always going on ; — and when we fall, 
getting up again as fast as possible, and again going 
on. Madame Guyon says, " every thing depends 
on continual progress." This idea I feel as if I 
could never too deeply engrave on my own mind, 
which is constantly disposed to stop and inquire 
whereabouts it is in life's journey, and to look back 
on the road it has passed, and to lose time in think- 
ing how much better it might have been travelled. 

There is an inclination I believe in every mind 
to pause now and then and take a look at itself; 
just as a painter pauses to contemplate his picture 
and consider its progress. This may be very well 
in him, and favourable to his w^ork ; but it is not so 
with the mind. There, everything must be per- 
petually advancing ; and to be looking back at the 
steps we have made, is to do as a child who takes 
a plant out of the ground to see how it grows. 

I must stop a little longer however, with the 
reader's leave, on this subject of indiscreet commu- 
nicativeness, and let out some of the effervescence 
of my thoughts respecting it on paper, as a kind of 
safety valve ; or, possibly, on the same ground as 
Sir Richard Steele is said to have writte' his 



60 REMINISCENCES OF 

"Christian Hero;" in order that his own hand 
might witness against him if he relapsed into any 
conduct inconsistent with the virtuous character he 
had pourtrayed in that book. 

There is a beautiful dignity in certain minds, as 
distinct from the solemn coxcombry of pride, as the 
graceful symmetry and movements of a swan are 
different from the quack and waddle of a goose, 
which I quite reverence, and languish to possess. 
But it is the rarest thing to meet with. Plenty of 
pretenders to it I have often encountered ; but the 
holders of the thing itself I do not remember to 
have seen above three or four times in my life. 

Without any assumption, on the contrary from 
the very meekness of its bearing, it throws a pro- 
tecting panoply over its possessor that effectually 
nullifies the obtrusive familiarity and pert censure 
with which people like Lord Byron are always 
prone to be assailed. For, whatever it is that in- 
ferior persons can not do, they are seldom deficient 
in a capacity to perceive, and peck at, the weak- 
nesses of those who have more understanding than 
themselves ; neither do they ever lack the power of 
remembering them with much more distinctness 
and tenacity, than any higher traits of character in 
their betters. 

It is a saddening reflection indeed, but one that 
forces itself upon the minds of all who would see 
things as they are, that you may always calculate 
upon being observed and characterized rather by 



l! 



I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 61 

your faults than by your merits ; unless you should 
happen to be so insignificant, or so dissembling, as 
to be a favourite with everybody. This may sound 
rather sarcastic; but I will venture to challenge 
the reader quietly to consider the matter, and then 
say, should he number any universal favourites 
amongst his acquaintance, whether they are not 
properly, and on the whole, to be classed with the 
weak or with the hypocritical. This is perfectly 
certain ; that they never can be frank, open-hearted 
persons ; — never of the Othello sort, who " wear 
their hearts upon their sleeve, for daws to peck at ;" 
— for if they were, the flock of daws and carrion 
crows who feed and grow fat upon the faults of 
such people, w^ould not be lacking in their retinue. 
Not that I find any fault with the crows and daws 
for doing what is so natural to them, and so bene- 
ficial, rightly contemplated, to the subject of their 
attacks, who greatly require these practical lessons 
from the circumstances of life ; — lessons which an 
old writer quaintly compares to those of '^ a wise 
father, who finding his son loitering and playing 
the truant with idle boys in the street, gives him 
a good smart slap and sends him home."* 

There are few occasions in which this " smart 
slap" comes with greater force than when we dis- 
cover the mistake we have made in supposing our- 



* In a Sermon of W. Bridge, a Puritan Divine in the reign 
of Charles IL 



62 REMINISGENXES OF 

selves to be interesting or important in any way, 
and, under that idea, are casting about for means 
of creating a sensation. 

This desire of creating a sensation, exists per- 
haps, in greater strength in the female sex than the 
other ; but it is a potent part of humanity in both. 
In the religious world it is disguised becomingly 
under the notion of anxiety about spiritual welfare. 
Nothing is more engaging and really interesting, 
than any evidence of sincere solicitude in young 
persons, or any persons, to know the way of truth 
and righteousness, and to acquire those elevated 
views and principles which are the only shield we 
can interpose between our temptations and our pas- 
sions. 

But really, as it seems to me, all right teaching 
and preaching does so distinctly turn the inquirer 
away from human help, and drive him so directly 
into the closet of the heart, there to "shut the door, 
and pray to his Father which seeth in secret," — 
that when I have heard young people talk of con- 
sulting their " dear minister'' about this and the 
other temptation, I have found it impossible to be- 
lieve but that a lively desire of creating an interest 
for themselves in the heart of their spiritual adviser, 
was more actively prompting them, than a simple 
wish to do w^hat is right ; for, w^hen this is the only 
motive, how" near is the counsellor ! 

I can remember many occasions in my life in 
which I asked advice respecting measures that I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 63 

conceived myself called upon to adopt, and upon 
almost all such occasions, I have afterwards seen 
that I should have done better to have consulted 
only the oracle in my own breast. I can also re- 
member that, whenever I did simply wait upon that 
oracle for light and direction, they not only came, 
but with them came also a holy confidence of being 
in the right, which was far more sure and unerring 
than any that my own or any other person's wis- 
dom could have suggested. The more we accus- 
tom ourselves to obey this inward monitor, the 
more we shall be drawn away from all human coun- 
sel, and be taught to perceive that by seeking it 
we should only degrade and dishonour the divine 
Guide and Governor of our destiny. 

We seldom I believe, are much bent upon seek- 
ing counsel when we only want to act for the best. 
It is when our motives are double, and particularly 
when w^e want to be comforted under dubious, and 
probably wrong conduct, that we seek such aid. 
Yet what consolation can be so futile as that which 
we derive from bolstering up doubtful things by 
another person's favourable view of them ! How 
many times have I in my earlier years, tried to 
console myself for some imprudent step by talking 
it over with those who were likely to say something 
palliative of my indiscretion ; or at all events to 
soothe and console me under the pain and remorse 
it occasioned ; and how many times have I got no- 
thing by such a step, but a deeper plunge into er- 



64 REMINISCENCES OF 

ror and regret ! For what can possibly be said to 
alter the nature of things ? Truth must be truth, 
and error must be error, turn them which way you 
will ; and in whatever point of view the doer of the 
wrong deed may choose to regard it, and by what- 
ever process of coaxing and cajolery he may be 
persuaded to think he has not been so very foolish 
or so very wrong, the plain and unbending nature 
of the act as a right, or wrong, or wise, or foolish 
one, remains the same, and produces its natural 
and necessary impression upon all to whom it ad- 
dresses itself. 

But what then can we do in our various exigen- 
cies ? The counsels or the comforts of others are, 
no doubt, but transient and unsatisfying remedies ; 
— yet what can we do single-handed ? Shall we 
make a fight of it, and buffet our foes of sorrow, 
and remorse, and fear, by running out for consola- 
tion to this and the other " shadow of Egypt ? " 
Shall we go to the theatres, or read the lucubra- 
tions of Punch, or call for strong drink, or commit 
any other folly of the same kind. Where is the 
sane man or woman who, in any case but their own, 
would not both see and say, that such remedies 
were helpless and hopeless ; and that to be still and 
quiet, would infallibly tend a thousand fold more 
than any other alleviation, to produce peace to the 
suffering spirit ? So entirely does common sense as^ 
similate with the results of the most exalted piety. 

But here again, I have got a great way from 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 66 

home, and am playing truant ; for which the reader 
will be giving me the " good smart slap " I deserve. 
I shall not be angry if he does, for I have had 
many such " slaps " in my time, and never without 
cause to perceive that I wanted them. There is 
indeed in the lot of every body, some snare, some 
delusion, from which they require to be awakened 
by a sharp stroke. 

None, as it seems to me, is so common and so 
unsuspected a deception as that of over valuing 
ourselves, and of supposing that this and the other 
disclosure of our interior condition is graceful or 
interesting. 

*' O wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as others see us, 
It wad fra' mony a blunder free us, 
An' foolish notion." 

For lack of this " seeing oursels as others see us," 
— what a painful, yet at the same time, what a gro- 
tesque exhibition does a genteel evening party often 
produce ! Here we have young ladies " looking 
delightfully with all their might,"-— and labouring 
so earnestly to be sweetly simple and natural, that 
one wonders they do not themselves perceive how 
distinctly the young gentlemen whom they are 
aiming to subdue, are discerning and smiling at 
the intensity of their efforts. The young gentle- 
men in the meanwhile, are no whit behindhand in 
thei7' purposes of recommending themselves ; only, 
that having in a manner, and comparatively speak- 



66 REMINISCENCES OF 

ing, the game in their own hands, and no such con- 
centration of interests at stake in the result as the 
other party, — they generally take it more easy, and 
being more easy, are almost always more natural. 
Then, amongst the old ladies and gentlemen, in 
proportion as " the susceptibility to immediate im- 
pressions " is strong or weak, there is the careless 
betraying, or the studious concealing, of the ruling 
passion ; and as you happen yourself to be in the 
habit of doing one or the other, you either rattle 
out your remarks or your narrations with an indis- 
cretion which you contemplate upon your pillow 
till you are half mad, — or you listen to somebody 
else who does it, till you are half asleep. In a word, 
you have only to go into society under certain of 
its semblances, to discover that, as I have just said, 
no benefit or blessing can be greater than to be de- 
livered from the delusion of supposing ourselves to 
be interesting, — and that nobody sees more of us 
than we choose to disclose. Adam Smith in his 
^^ Theory of Moral Sentiments," by way of illus- 
trating his remark respecting the necessity of uiTJ 
consciousness of purpose to render action graceful, 
observes, that we may admire the movements of a 
person who is merely walking across a room ; but, 
if we had reason to suppose that individual was 
studying to excite admiration, or supposing that he 
excited it, — our sentiments would be those of dis- 
gust instead of approbation. 

But with respect to what I have said touching 



I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 67 

society, I would desire to be understood as alluding 
to it only under the modification of its full dress 
and gala day appearances. In the undress and ease 
of genial intercourse, it stands high in my estima- 
tion as one of the influences which operate the 
most beneficially upon the mind and afi'ections ; for 
it is a singular and a painful thing, that many, per- 
haps I might almost say most persons, find more 
sympathy as to their taste and imagination and ge- 
neral mental powers, every where rather than in 
their own domestic circle ; and hence it may be 
that so many hearts so readily open to the pleasing 
impression which attends the consciousness of be- 
ing understood and valued, and that they become 
sometimes indiscreetly communicative. 

That the interior nature should so often develop 
its worst features at home, I apprehend must arise 
from the familiarity which reigns there, and which, 
according to the old proverb, engenders contempt. 
Now, contempt is the death of all budding beauty, 
and were it not for the gleams of sunshine which 
j;adiate from the kindliness of society in its friendly 
aspects, many a young spirit of great promise would 
wither unknown and unmatured. 

And how much is there in every one, that a 
particular combination of gircum stances is fitted to 
develop, even to the surprise of the individual 
himself! A few words, — a smile, — will strike the 
heart which had indurated under the frost of neg- 
lect or contumely, and cause the waters to flow in a 



68 REMINISCENCES OF 

stream that fertilizes and refreshes, and makes it 
put forth many pleasant flowers and fruits. 

There is another advantage which nothing but 
refined and intellectual society afi'ords, and that is, 
the polishing ofi* of those angularities of selfishness 
which are so strikingly developed in uneducated 
people. It matters not what the intellectual power 
may be, nor what the genius, nor what the study ; 
— there is a coarse, rough instinct to seize upon 
whatever may make for personal interest in the na- 
tural heart, which is only to be tamed and properly 
regulated by the interchange of that courteous com- 
munication which exists between well informed and 
well educated persons. 

Assuredly I have no quarrel with society while 
thus contemplated. But when it is made up of 
people whom it is impossible to consider as other- 
wise than intolerably silly, afi'ected, artificial, and 
unsatisfactory, — people whose whole existence is 
devoted in its strongest aspirations to making fine 
appearances, and whose most solemn enquiry at 
every turn is, " What will Mrs. Grundy say 9 " 
— yet before whom, one's vivacity of temperament 
is ever presenting one like a gudgeon to be caught 
and devoured, — I should find it hard to do other- 
wise than despise, if I did not perceive that it would 
be wiser to compassionate it. 

" A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." 

and when I remember that if my own particular evil 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 69 

does not work in fears of Mrs. Grundy, or in anxious 
desires to appear somebody in the eyes of the world, 
it nevertheless does work, and quite as offensively 
in the opinion of a great many, — I would lay my 
hand upon my mouth, and find no fault with any- 
body. There is cause indeed, for the deepest com- 
passion in every heart towards every living soul ; 
and the more blind, and ignorant, and indifferent 
to what is good and true, and alive and eager after 
what is foolish and false, people may be, the more 
should every right feeling person pity and seek to 
ameliorate their condition. " But then they don't 
want either your pity or your help." Very well ; 
don't trouble them then with ofibring it ; but be 
sure they are none the less pitiable for supposing 
themselves above commiseration. We must all 
suffer and die; and whatever make-believe we have 
been playing at, it will then be seen for what it is. 
Here then, we meet on common ground, and 
ground where Mrs. Grundy and appearances have 
very little influence. O, for the single eye that 
looks always at truth, and overlooks the little bits 
and parcels of nonsense, and frailty, whether of 
our own or other people's, which lie between us 
and it ! 



70 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER VI. 




HERE are times when the mind, Hke 
nature, seems to be surrounded by 
sunshine, serenity, and love. A calm, 
mild Sabbath day is much in unity 
with this interior condition ; and it was a condition 
which, on a still and lovely Sunday morning, I not 
long since experienced. 

A little volume lay near me, which 1 opened al- 
most mechanically ; and, as happens sometimes 
under such circumstances, it presented to me a 
passage which suggested a train of thought that 
filled my mind for the greater part of the day. 

The passage itself was in one of Longfellow's 
poems, wherein he had been alluding to scenes of 
past enjoyment in the society of a beloved indivi- 
dual from whom he was then separated ; and more 
particularly, to the delight he formerly experienced 
in accompanying her to church. 

" Here runs the highway to the town. 
There the green lane descends, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING, 71 

Through which J walked to church with thee, 
O gentlest of my friends ! 

" Thy dress was like the lilies, 

And thy heart as pure as they ; 
One of God's holy messengers, 

Did walk with me that day. 

" Through the closed blinds the golden sun 

Poured in a dusty beam ; 
Like the celestial ladder seen 

By Jacob in his dream. 

" And ever and anon the wind 

Sweet-scented with the hay, 
Turn*d o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves, 

That on the window lay. 

"Long was the good man's sermon, 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For he spake of Ruth the beautiful. 

And still I thought of thee. 

** Long was the prayer he uttered, 

Yet it seemed not so to me ; 
For in my heart I prayed with him, 

And still I thought of thee." 



The beauty and simple truth of the imagery, — 
the dusty beam from the golden sun, — the sweet 
scented breeze from the hay-field waving the leaves 
of the hymn-book as it lay in the window, — so vi- 
vidly recalled to my mind bright summer suns that 
had been set for many a year, but which at these ex- 
quisite touches of the poet seemed to gleam forth 



72 REMINISCENCES OF 

again and to disclose many a long buried vision of 
unsurpassable beauty, that I sighed as I laid down 
the book to yield myself for a little while to the 
enchantments of memory. 

" Why should it be so ? '' at length I asked my- 
self. " Why is there this perpetual blight upon all 
earthly joy and beauty?'' 

The inquiry suggested several others, which at 
length landed me upon an idea on which I love to 
expatiate long and largely. 

It may appear strange, but it is an inexpressibly 
sweet thought to me that, in point of fact, there 
may be no reality in the things that appeal to the 
senses, and if so, that evil, like everything else, is 
only a shadow, though like all the other mysteries 
that surround us, it is real enough in the aid which, 
when properly used, it lends to our moral develop- 
ment. 

I am aware that this idea of the non-existence of 
external things, has occupied many wiser and more 
learned heads than mine ; but I have never studied 
any person's theory respecting it. In fact, I never 
can get on with any sort of metaphysical theory. 
The abstruseness of such subjects is in itself calcu- 
lated to inspire dismay ; and when it becomes 
clothed in the abstract terms, which, like a short- 
hand for private use, nobody clearly undei'stands 
but the individual who adopts it, — it is nearly as 
unintelligible to me as an inscription on a Babylo- 
nish brick. It is only by the occasional words 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 73 

which I have met with in a course of very desul- 
tory reading, that I know anything of the views 
or notions of others on this subject, and never 
have I met with such words, however "few and 
far between," which did not wake up something 
in my heart that gave a wiUing and ardent assent 
to them. 

These hues of Coleridge were, for a long time, 
scarcely ever absent from my mind : — 

I " Constantly believe thou, O my soul, 

^ Life is a vision shadowy of truth ; 

And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, 

Shapes of a dream." — 

Nor did I less rejoice in this extract from the " Life 
of Sir James Macintosh,"^ who says in the journal 
he kept while in India, — 

" I had a conversation yesterday with a young 
Bramin of no great learning, the son of the Pundit 
(or assessor of Hindu law) of my court. He told 
me that besides the myriads of Gods whom their 
creed admits, there was one whom they know only 
by the name of Brim, or the Great One, without 
form or limits, whom no created intellect could 
make any approach towards conceiving ; — that in 
reality, there were no trees, no houses, no land, no 
sea, but all without, was Maia or illusion, the act 
of Brim ; that whatever we saw or felt was only a 
dream, or, as he expressed it in his imperfect Eng- 

♦ Vol. i. p, 258. 



74 REMINISCENCES OF 

lish, thinking in one's sleep ; and, that the re-union 
of the soul to Brim, from which it originally sprung, 
was the awakening from the long sleep of finite 
existence." 

Of course, such spectral contemplations as these 
make some people very angry. 

" The frivolous," says Emerson,* " make them- 
selves merry with the Ideal Theory, as if its con- 
sequences were burlesque; — as if it afi'ected the 
stability of Nature. The broker, the wheelwright, 
the carpenter, the toll-man, are much displeased at 
the intimation/' 

" But," he goes on to say, " whilst we acquiesce 
entirely in the permanence of natural laws, the 
question of the absolute existence of Nature still 
remains open. 

" It is the uniform effect of culture on the human 
mind not to shake our faith in the stability of par- 
ticular phenomena ; as of heat, water, azote — but 
to lead us to regard nature as a phenomenon, not a 
substance ; — to attribute necessary existence to 
spirit; — to esteem nature as an accident and an 
effect." 

" Nothing," says Wm. Lawf (for whose doc- 
trines I entertain the most reverential admiration,) 
" nothing lives throughout the universe but spirit.'* 



* In the charming chapter on Idealism in his " Essay on 
Nature.'^ 
. t In his " Spirit of Love." 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 73 

" No, nothing else/^ I mentally repeated ; " though 
to be sure, these views could never be digested into 
any system, nor propounded in a way to commend 
them to anybody's belief or acceptance ;" and then 
I remembered Sidney Smith's story in one of his 
Lectures on Philosophy, respecting the ancient 
idealist who stoutly maintained the negation of mat- 
ter ; but whose servants, without in the least dis- 
puting the truth of his theory, still made it a point 
to snatch hold of him, and safely lift him out of the 
w^ay whenever he was in danger of being run over 
by any vehicles in the street. 

" But if one can draw no practical advantage 
from the theory,'' I continued, '' of what use is it? " 

The use and beauty of it as it strikes me, is to 
elevate and prepare us for the forthcoming state of 
spirit into which, on quitting the body, we mani- 
festly pass, unless it be denied that we pass into 
any thing but sleep ; a view of the subject which I 
do not receive ; for, that we then do pass into the 
real, and only real region of truth, and love, and 
beauty, leaving our old mass of matter and mor- 
tality, our old world, and old bodies, and old dreams, 
behind us, and cast from us, just as the chrysalis 
casts off its skin, — I believe with the most devout 
hope and joy. 

If there is one view of the mysteries of nature 
that saddens and 'afflicts my feelings with the most 
entire despondency, it is that of materialism. I can 
only conceive of matter as something symbolic of 



76 REMINISCENCES OF 

corruption, — something that has got away from 
God ; and I can only conceive of spirit, as some- 
thing that is in unity with God. Is it not remark- 
able that every sort of evil temptation that comes 
to us, comes in some connection, however apparently 
remote, with things of sense, and related to matter; 
and that every release from temptation, every ad- 
vance towards truth and goodness, comes with a 
demand, and with help, to release ourselves from 
the fetters of sense and materialism ? 

It is totally impossible for a materiahst to be a 
spiritually-minded person. It is a contradiction in 
terms, and I am sure it is a contradiction in na- 
ture. His spirituality, if any he has, can onl^ 
exist on the side of his pride ; — and pride, envy, 
deceit, ambition, &c. which look like spiritual vices, 
and which, considered as such, may seem to nulHfy 
my views of the absoluteness of the connection be- 
tween matter and sin, — will, I believe, when ana- 
lyzed as to their nature, be found to assail and pre- 
vail upon human beings in some relation with mat- 
ter and sense ; and that without such relation they 
would be powerless to affect us. 

One loses somewhat certainly, as to enjoyment, 
though I think it might better be said as to illusion, 
in being deeply imbued with these ideas respecting 
the spectral nature of matter. It also depreciates 
the towering claims of science when one is per- 
suaded that they relate only to appearances. No- 
thing I confess, seems to me much more vapid and 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 77 

uninfluential, as far as one's moral being is con- 
cerned, than the prodigious work that is made about 
any thing that addresses itself chiefly to the senses. 
— Lord Rosse*s telescope for instance ; I should 
delight in looking through it, for nothing charms 
my sensitive nature more than that great mystery, 
the starry heavens ; and reverently I wonder at, 
and admire these glorious works. But, when it 
comes to the investing of them with spiritual attri- 
butes, and there is a talk of our hereafter, perhaps, 
inhabiting some one of the planets, and people are 
more than ever (as is natural enough with such a 
prospect before them) wanting to look through 
Lord Rosse's telescope, my sympathy ends ; and I 
say to myself — " Pooh ! what matters Lord Rosse's 
telescope, and what is the geography of the moon 
to me, or any one else, except as it may be needful 
to our present purposes to know something of its 
motions ? At present, indeed, we are in the land 
of moonshine ; (Heaven help us out of it !) but, 
when 'the daybreaks, and the shadows disappear,' 
and we are in the land where ' there is no need of 
sun or moon,' there will be no masses of matter, — 
nothing hard or sharp, or rough or smooth, or near 
or distant, but w^e shall be in unity with the Great 
Unity, and see all truth at one glance, in Him J' 

The great difficulty in all these speculations, is, 
so to clear out ideas, that we can distinctly specify 
them in language. So few people attach the same 
meaning to the same terms, that however intelligible 



78 REiMINISCENCES OF ^^B ' 

a proposition may be to the person who states it, 
there is but a forlorn hope that it will commend 
itself with any perceptible meaning to another. I 
saw this, not for the first time, but with new force, 
whilst pursuing my train of thought on this occa- 
sion. 

'' What a confused, and probably, mistaken no- 
tion," thought I, " do we imbibe from the word 
matter ! In the popular acceptation of the term, it 
suggests merely a mass of something; — a great 
building, a great ship, a great tree, articles of fur- 
niture, &c. That is an oak table," said I, proceed- 
ing in my train of reasoning as one of the populace, 
not as a philosopher ; " and a large, ponderable, 
space-occupying thing it is. But the wood of which 
it is made was once an acorn ; and the acorn itself 
was once a seed ; and this house in which I live 
was built brick by brick ; which bricks were made 
of clay," &c. In short, I so satisfactorily to myself 
traced things to their beginnings, that my confi- 
dence in the theory of appearances was greatly 
strengthened ; though, as in all such inquiries, no- 
thing was so strictly demonstrated as the inflexibi- 
lity of the barrier which prescribes a limit to them, 
and the impossibility of talking about them so as to 
be understood. 

" What indeed is known of matter ? " says a 
writer, in whose pages, I remembered a short time 
before, to have seen this mysterious question touched 
upon. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 79 

" We say that matter occupies space, possesses 
impenetrability, gravity, chemical attraction, adhe- 
sion, &c. But, when we proceed to ask what is 
that to which these properties are attached or be- 
long, considered apart, or abstracted from, these 
properties ; — Is there a substratum possessing the 
essential properties of matter ? If so, what is the 
definition of this substratum ? Or again ; Is mat- 
ter a congeries of atoms to which belong certain 
properties, and which are indefinitely small ? Or, 
is it a congeries of mere mathematical points, from 
which, as centres, certain attractions and repulsions 
act to certain distances ? Is not gravitation an at- 
traction ? Is not cohesion,' — is not affinity, an at- 
traction? Is not impenetrability, or the power of 
occupying space to the exclusion of another portion 
of matter — is not indestructibility, also a repulsion ? 
Is not magnetism — is not electricity made up of 
attractions and repulsions ? What then remains ? " 

It is for the sake of telling the reader what the 
author deduces as a remainder that I have given 
him this long extract. 

" What then remains ? If the presence of all 
these forces acting from central points w^ould pro- 
duce on our senses all the effect produced by mat- 
ter ; may not matter, or rather may not the proper- 
ties of matter which alone we know, be simply the 
result' of forces thus grouped ? "* 

* " Letters on Animal Magnetism," by Professor Gre- 
gory, p. 56. 



80 REMINISCENCES OF 

I confess this remainder is very delightful to me; 
inasmuch as it seems to throw a gleam of illumina- 
tion upon the dark, shapeless, and appalling mys- 
teries of nature ; wherein, except as faith and de- 
votional feeling support the soul, nothing seems so 
palpably distinct as confusion and interrupted pur- 
poses. 

" The sensible world," says Kant, "does not 
promise us, />'om the nature of things^ a systematic 
unity of ends." 

How true and comprehensive are those words, 
''from the nature of things I " and how powerfully 
do they draw the thoughtful reader to shut his eyes 
for a time upon the illusions of the senses, and 
meditate upon the intrinsic meaning and ascertained 
character of things ! 

" We can only know these things through the 
medium of the senses," it will doubtless be ob- 
served. 

Of course, our perceptions of objects must be 
obtained in that way. A musician must have his 
instrument before he can demonstrate his art. It 
is a necessary condition of his doing anything. 
Still, it is hut the instrument. Those fine modula- 
tions, those tender touches of beauty which extract 
from us a smile of rapture — where do they come 
from ? Out of the instrument, no doubt, in a cer- 
tain sense. But ask some boarding-school Miss 
trained in the school of Jullien and the like, to sit 
down to the same instrument, and what does she 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 81 

do with it ? Just as little and much the same as 
the person who deduces his views of spirit from the 
region of matter. 

It is only the thinker upon truth and the lover 
of it, who either can or will, sincerely ask himself 
what is the nature of things, and if it does promise 
any thing like unity and truth. 

When such a one contemplates the question 
abstracted from the light which revelation throws 
upon it, I conceive it impossible for him to come to 
any other conclusion than that his dwelling in this 
world is under a combination of circumstances which 
clearly indicate, y*rom their very nature, an inca- 
pability of unity or truth. 

For what is human life? — by which query I 
mean, — what is the life that by far the greater 
part of human beings are leading ? so great a part, 
that they may well be quoted as the rule, and the 
very few who do otherwise as the exception. 

Is it not the natural life of the senses ? and is 
that life any thing and can it be any thing, but, as 
a powerful teacher of truth defines it, " the most in- 
tricate, irregular, and confused thing in the world ; 
no one part of it agreeing with another, because 
the whole is not firmly knit together by the power 
of some ultimate end and object running through 
all."* 



* Dr. John Smith, in one of his sermons, published in 
the seventeenth century, 

6 



82 REMINISCENCES OF 

Here we are told that from the very nature of | 
this life there can be no unity of purpose in it, be- 
cause it has no " ultimate end and object running j 
through it." 

But is there really none ? 

Yes, in a certain sense there is ; for the ultimate 
end and object of such a life is ease and enjoyment 
— and where are these to be found ? 

Take up a newspaper, and you shall see. Take 
it up reverently, for it is a record of human na- 
ture, a map of its country, a guide to its resting 
places, a register of its joys and sorrows, its pur- 
poses and pursuits, and in every sense of the word, 
the most striking and veritable history of its ends 
and objects that language can unfold. 

And what are they ? Theatres, balls, plays, con- 
certs, soirees, and what not in the way of pleasure. 
Disease, accident, misconduct, distress, and death 
in the way of suffering. Here is M. Robin, and his 
games fantastique in one column ; and here in an- 
other, is a notice from a broken-hearted father, in- 
forming the world that — 

" Left his home on Saturday last, a youth about 
fifteen years of age, supposed to take the road to 
• — —. If he will return to his disconsolate pa- 
rents, he shall be received with joy and forgive- 
ness, and all his wishes as far as possible complied 
with." 

Here is recorded an untimely birth ; — and a little 
lower down, the mother's death. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 83 

*' There is no flock, however watched and tended. 

But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended. 

Bat has one vacant chair ! 

" The air is full of farewells to the dying, 

And mournings for the dead ; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 

Will not be comforted ! '^ * 

Here is a narrative of shipwreck or of railway 
destruction, sweeping away human life as if it were 
nothing but a leaf before the wind. Here you have 
a detail of bankruptcy, of crime, of sin, sorrow 
and shame, of everything in short, that indicates 
disorder, delusion, and untruth. 

"' But away with these too sombre views," per- 
haps, most persons will say ; while those who de- 
light in " rose water," as Mr. Carlyle expresses it, 
will impatiently shut my book, if they are not 
tempted to throw it into the fire. 

I say no more then, except that the secret per- 
suasion on my spirit that in walking amidst these 
scenes, we do, as holy writ expresses it, " walk in 
a vain show,f and disquiet ourselves in vain," is a 
theory which affords so potent a panacea for pain 
either of mind or body, that I should wrestle hard 
to maintain possession of it in the face of all the 
artillery that could be levelled against it. 

That it would be attacked I make no doubt, if I 

* Longfellow. t IMarginal reading ** an image.'* 



84 REMINISCENCES OF 

were not, as I hope and believe I am, too obscure 
and insignificant to serve as a target for any body's 
arrows ; for I cannot but be well aware that I have 
selected dangerous ground for an untrained, un- 
learned person such as I am, to venture upon ; and 
may reasonably apprehend that if I am discovered 
there by a scholastic philosopher, I shall not only 
get the " good smart slap," but be in hazard of 
having all my bones broken into the bargain. For 
when these scholars do catch a vagrant thinker 
upon their domains, — one who oyily thinks, and who 
does not know how to dispose of hisHhoughts after 
the rule and square of severe logic,^ — what minced 
meat they make of him ! An infuriated game- 
keeper, and a detected poacher, convey but faint 
images of the attack. Nevertheless, people will 
poach, and they will think, be the hazard what it 
may; and, as the game in one instance, though 
irregularly obtained, may be quite as good in the 
eating as if the squire had shot it himself, so, a 
poor solitary unlearned body, humbly thinking 
about this and that, respecting the wonders that 
surround him, may pounce upon a truth w^hich will 
feed him as deliciously when cooked in his own 
simple way, as if it had been garnished with the 
sharpest sauce with w^hich Oxford or Cambridge 
could dress it. 

To drop however, the metaphorical, and with it 
all pertness or presumption, I \vould quietly suggest 
to the opposers of these views, that there are 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 85 

thoughts about things, which, from their very na- 
ture, cannot be made the subject of any process of 
ratiocination, but which are nevertheless, permitted 
to the lover of truth to indulge and delight in ; and 
that whilst they are pursued with humility (a tem- 
per of mind which, more than any other, I reve- 
rently desire the Giver of all good to clothe me 
with) — they are tolerably certain of being even- 
tually righted, by an internal evidence either of 
their futility or their justice* For, " whom will he 
teach knowledge, and whom shall he make to un- 
derstand doctrine ? Them that are weaned from 
the milk, and drawn from the breasts.^^ * 

There seems to be nothing therefore wanting to 
the attainment of the most sublime discoveries, but 
that precious nature of the little child to whom it is 
the Father's good pleasure to unfold the riches of 
his kingdom. May it be the disposition of his poor 
ignorant creatures to seek above all seeking, the 
condition which He favours ! 

* Isaiah xxviii. 9. 



86 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER VII. 




WAS struck last night with this pas- 
sage in an article in the Edinburgh 
Review, wherein the writer was speak- 
ing of the wonderful uniformity of 
certain operations in statistics. 

" The first of these," he says, " is the exceeding 
regularity which is found to prevail in the annual 
march of statistical returns, and the constancy of 
the ratios they indicate where great masses of po- 
pulation are concerned. As instances might be 
cited, the relative proportion in the births of the 
sexes, &c. ; the ratio of marriages to the whole po- 
pulation ; of second marriages to the whole number 
of annual marriages ; and, still more minutely, of 
widowers with widows, widows with bachelors, and 
widowers with spinsters ; the relative ages of par- 
ties intermarrying, and innumerable other particu- 
lars, all of which, free as air in individual cases, 
seem to be regulated with a precision where masses 
are concerned, clearly proving the existence of re- 
lations among the acting causes so determinate, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 87 

that there is evidently nothing but the intricacy of 
their mode of action, to prevent their being sub- 
jected to exact calculation, and tested by appeal to 
fact;' 

When I had read this, I paused to muse a little 
upon it, and soon came to the conclusion that if 
things are really thus, it is clear that some myste- 
rious law overrules human destiny, and compels it 
to be exactly what it is. In fact I saw nothing for 
it but the doctrine of fatality ; and had no kind of 
objection to it. On resuming my book, I found 
that the Reviewer had also been impelled to the 
same conclusion, for the next sentence I read was 
as follows : — 

" Taken in the mass, and in reference both to 
the physical and moral laws of his existence, the 
boasted freedom of man disappears ; and hardly an 
action of his Hfe can be named which usages, con- 
ventions, and the stern necessities of his being, do 
not appear to enjoin on him as inevitable, rather than 
to leave him to the free determination of his choice.'^ 

There is something very strengthening and con- 
solatory to my mind in the idea that all things are 
ordained to be such as we find them to be ; nor do 
I perceive that this doctrine of necessity has the 
slightest tendency, properly received and acted 
upon, to render persons careless or indifferent to 
their duty ; inasmuch as there is an obvious neces- 
sity in the nature of things, that if they wilfully and 
consciously sin, they must suffer. 




88 REMINISCENCES OT 

We may believe, therefore, that the dictates of 
common sense without any higher motive, would 
incline them to avoid evil doing as much as pos- 
sible ; whilst the comfort of the doctrine consists in 
the assurance it imparts that the things which give 
lis pain, and which, judging by the event, it would 
have been wiser and better for us, so far as we sup- 
posed we had the power, to have ordered otherwise, 
really could not have been prevented ; inasmuch as 
we have no power to alter any thing, but must take 
it as it comes in its inflexible order. 

The usual objection that such views might pos- 
sibly cause a person to say on committing any crime 
that it was his fate to do so, and he could not help 
it, seems to me but futile; for every person has 
that in him which testifies that it is his duty to ob- 
serve the law of right written in his conscience, 
and that when he does observe it, he cannot find 
himself in any position that induces crime, though 
he may often be in a position to be comforted in 
believing that by no efi'orts of his own could he 
have avoided those circumstances which bring him 
under the discipline of pain and sorrow. 

We w^ant something inflexible, — something that 
can be recognised under the form of a law, to govern 
and to quiet the mind under its various exigencies 
whether of " mind, body, or estate ;" seeing, that 
to its actual trials, it is ever prone to add the ope- 
rations of imagination, and to enter on the " never 
ending still beginning" task of speculating on the 
cause and consequences of its sorrows. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 89 

" Had I not done so or so," — or, " had I hut 
done it,^^ — or, " if I should do it/' — who is there 
that does not know the nucleus of anguish which 
these fruitless cogitations cause in the centre of the 
heart, and to which every other thought gathers by 
irresistible attraction, till the poor subject of this 
mass of misery is well nigh distracted. How po- 
tent a stay at such times is the remembrance that 
there is a " needs be" for suffering ; in using which 
expression, I would eschew very earnestly the lan- 
guage of religious conventionalism, which so often 
uses the phraseology of holy writ, without any dis- 
tinct or practical knowledge of the thing it em- 
bodies, that to avoid joining in the desecration they 
have thus received, one would prefer to state one's 
meaning in almost any terms rather than in certain 
scripture expressions. I do not think it is going 
too far to say that more persons are repelled from 
religion by the flippant and odious familiarity with 
which certain sectarians garnish their discourse 
with biblical language, than by any other impedi- 
ment. 

There is a "needs be," I doubt not, in the sense 
of a divine necessity, that we should be " sometimes 
in heaviness through manifold temptations ;" and 
our surest and readiest help at such times, will be 
found in a deep conviction that the incidents of hu- 
man life as they arise, are o'nly the unfoldings of a 
map, — only the revelation of a system of things 
that have been done in the counsels of God from 



90 REMINISCENCES OF 

all eternity. In this belief we are brought "to the 
haven where we would be," and feel our souls, as 
George Fox says, " anchored to their immortal 
bishop," in a condition of security where the surg- 
ings of evil, however they may toss, can never over- 
whelm us. 

There is another view of the doctrine of neces- 
sity which, though not directly, perhaps indeed, 
very remotely, related to that we have been consi- 
dering, is of great value in its tendency to make 
us charitable in our judgment of our fellow crea- 
tures. If everything is governed by the law of 
necessity, the nature of man, being what it is, can 
never be anything else. Here again, I am on dan- 
gerous ground, and must take care what I am about. 
But disclaiming with all earnestness and sincerity, 
the licentiousness of thinking which might lead to 
a supposition of irresponsibihty on the part of hu- ' 
man beings, — and most firmly persuaded that a day 
of grace and salvation is offered to every man, and 
that it is his own fault if he does not use it to his 
m.oral improvement,— I would say that the doctrine 
of necessity is calculated to make us charitable in 
judging of the failures and crimes of others, because 
we know not in the first place the circumstances of 
their physical organization ; — a condition which I 
am phrenologist enough to consider sufiSciently in- 
flexible in its results, to furnish a ready solution of 
many mistakes, and worse than mistakes. 

In the second place, whilst we know not how far 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 91 

the circumstances of an individuaPs history may 
have addressed peculiar snares and temptations to 
his particular temperament, we are tolerably cer- 
tain of possessing, as it respects ourselves, an ac- 
quaintance with something in the nature of an 
overruling law, as having saved us again and again, 
even when we did not want to be saved. We 
know enough in short, or ought to do, of our own 
case to remind us of the propriety of keeping our 
mouths " as it were with a bridle," from the utter- 
ance of all censure upon that of others. 
" How much," says the pious Herbert, 

" How much, preventing God, — how much I owe 
To the defences thou hast round me set; 
Example,— -custom, — fear, — occasion slow, — 
These scorned bondsmen were my parapet ; 
1 dare not peep over the parapet, 
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below ; — 
The depths of sin to which I had descended, 
Had not these me against myself defended." 

There is yet another consideration of the doctrine 
of necessity which appears to me to be greatly 
helpful in staying and strengthening the mind, and 
bringing it to a harbour of rest ; and that is in the 
deliverance which it effects from all restless anxie- 
ties on the subject of individual influence. How- 
many are the occasions on which it seems as if we 
have only to state our impressions in order to pro- 
duce the desired effect upon the mind of another, 
so reasonable, and almost self-evident do those im- 



92 REMINISCENCES OF 

pressions appear to us. A wise parent, for instance, 1 1 
perceiving the folly, the rashness, the ignorance 
with which his children are bent upon their parti- 
cular purposes, is just at his wits' end to make them 
see the case as he does. A preacher, or teacher 
of any kind, warmed by good wishes and good will 
for his fellow creatures, — ^and supposing that his 
long and dearly bought experience, backed, it may 
be, by age and imputed knowledge, will surely gain 
him a hearing and cause his audience to believe 
that " days should speak and multitude of years 
should teach wisdom;" — finding, as he often must, 
that his appeals are fruitless, — is ready to throw up 
the mission he believes to be appointed him in 
despair and disappointment, and to regard his in- 
fluence as scarcely worth the trouble of using. 
But when he is firmly persuaded that he has nothing 
to do with results, inasmuch as they are governed 
by their own laws, and that his only concern is to 
endeavour at fulfilling the law of God written upon 
his heart and conscience, and confirmed to him by 
the Scriptures ; and, in his place and condition, to 
be found doing his duty, assured that, in the un- 
swerving nature and necessity of things, every 
honest faithful warrior in the cause of truth will, 
sooner or later, discover as Mr. Carlyle says, that 
" one's poor battle in this world is not quite a mad 
and futile, that it is perhaps, a worthy and manful 
one which will come to something yet ; " * — he feels 

* Life of Sterling, p. 248, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 93 

beneath him a rock on which he may securely build 
an everlasting dwelling place. 

Scarcely any lesson has been more indelibly and 
practically fixed upon my own mind than that which 
has taught me the wisdom and proper humility of 
foregoing all anxiety respecting the consequences 
of supposed personal influence. " In the morning 
sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy 
hand." — " As thou hast freely received, freely 
give ;" for it is thy duty towards God and man so 
to do. But, " thou knowest not," neither is it thy 
business to know, " whether shall prosper, this or 
that." " It is the glory of God to conceal a 
matter." " What I do thou knowest not now, but 
thou shalt know hereafter," is the invariable lan- 
guage with which in the kingdom of nature and of 
grace he silences the pride of man, and stills his 
restlessness and futile solicitude about events. 

In the meanwhile with good cheer and full of 
hope that every honest effort in the cause of virtue 
will be " sanctified and made meet for the Master's 
use," let us remember that " no man liveth unto 
himself, and no man dieth unto himself." How 
many simple words of truth and righteousness, as 
unconsciously uttered as the bird in the desert 
pours forth its solitary song, have found their way 
to the soul that wanted them, and have comforted 
and helped it long after the mortal frame from 
whence they emanated has been mouldering in the 
dust I « 



94 REMINISCENCES OF 

" God did anoint thee with his odorous oil, 
To wrestle, not to reign ; — and he assigns 
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines, 
For younger fellow workers of the soil, 
To wear for amulets. So others shall 
"J'ake patience, labour to their hearts and hands, 
From thy hands and thy heart and thy brave cheer; 
And God's grace fructify through thee to all." 

Elizabetpi Barrett Browning. 



1 




THOUGHT AND FEELING. 95 





CHAPTER VIII. 

■ HEREWITH AL shall a young man 
cleanse his way? by taking heed 
thereto according to thy word." 
This comprehensive query and 
response arrested me long and I think, profitably 
this morning, as I took for the subject of my me- 
ditations a portion of that divine Psalm* which, 
though read it may be for the thousandth time, is 
ever new, ever fraught with materials for prayer, 
for praise, for instruction, for every thing in short, 
that addresses itself to the best and most enduring 
of man^s faculties. 

I saw with a force and distinctness beyond words 
to express, how essential it was to possess within 
the soul a principle of life and wisdom superior to 
ourselves — our poor selves, — yea, our terrible 
selves how often may we say, when we contemplate 
self in its rashness, ignorance and folly, especially 
under the heedlessness and impetuosity of youth, 

#* Psalm cxix. 



96 REMINISCENCES OF 

alive with the most intense force of life to the se- 
ductions of the passions, but dead with the deepest 
sleep of death to the actual character and debasing 
tendency of those passions, and the degrading thral- 
dom in which they enslave and subdue humanity. 
" Wherewithal shall the young escape these snares 
and cleanse their way ? " 

The divine condition of a pure heart, its bless- 
edness, its solitary loveliness, blossoming like a 
lily in the desert, content and happy to turn its 
snowy bosom to its Creator in secret adoration of 
Him who " beautifies it with salvation," — seemed 
to me not unattainable for human beings, but only 
not so in one way ; — even the way here specified, 
the way which suggests the " taking heed " to 
every thought of the heart, '' according to God^s 
word." 

I need scarcely say that I am not alluding to the 
Bible as so denominated by many religious persons ; 
but very ignorantly, very incongruously, as we may 
quickly perceive, by testing the term according to 
their acceptation of it by the first verse in the first 
chapter of the Gospel of John, which would read 
somewhat preposterously, as " In the beginning 
was the Bible, and the Bible was with God, and 
the Bible was God." 

No ; — I am alluding to that ever-living, ever- 
speaking Word of God which is not printed upon 
paper, — not imprisoned in language, — not called 
the Bible, though I thankfully acknowledge that we 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 97 

have cause to love and reverence the Bible for 
informing us of its nature, office, and dwelling- 
place. 

And of the first, — what is its testimony ? " Thy 
word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.'* 
" The word of God is quick and powerful, and 
sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even 
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of 
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart." 

Its office? " Thine ears shall hear a word be- 
hind thee saying. This is the way, walk ye in it, 
when ye would turn to the right hand and when ye 
would turn to the left." 

Its dwelling ? " The word is very nigh unto 
thee — in thy^ mouth, and in thy heart, that thou 
mayest do it." 

But to curtail all that need be said on this 
point ; no part of Scripture is more diffuse in allu- 
sion to, and in praise of the living word of God 
under its different names of testimonies, law, sta- 
tutes, &c. than this particular Psalm ; written, be 
it remembered, before the Bible had any existence. 

To know this precious Word then, seems to me 
to comprize nearly all the knowledge that is essen- 
tial to our peace and goodness. I do not mean the 
knowing it as a point of doctrine ; though that is 
something,^ — and a great something too, consider- 
ing how little distinct and definite prominence is 
given to it in the religious teaching of the day ;— 



98 REMINISCENCES OF 

but I mean the knowing it as " very nigh us;"— j 
as often saying to us, " This is the way, walk ye in | 
it ;" as " piercing even to the dividing of our soul ] 
and spirit ; " and, above all, as that " quick and j 
powerful discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart," which cuts them in sunder as with " a 
two-edged sword," separating between the precious 
and the vile, and so clearly showing us both, in the 
glance of a moment, that it leaves us no alternative 
but to choose aright, if we would be good and 
happy, and such as our Father which seeth us in 
secret would have us to be. 

" Oh that I had known this blessed guide in the 
days of my youth ! " said I to myself, as I mused 
upon the notional, doctrinal, inoperative way in 
which, like other young persons, I had imbibed my 
religious knowledge ; a knowledge, which, however 
it might reach the head, and so far the conscience, 
that I should have drawn back at once from openly 
breaking any of the ten commandments, had, as 
far as I can remember, no relation to the purposes 
and inclinations of my heart ; no w^ork of watching 
and '^ taking heed thereto," assigned it. Nor do I 
believe, that, as religion is commonly inculcated, it 
does effect its proper and efficient office ; at least, 
not in the mode and degree that is necessary for 
individual sanctification. Like everything else, 
particularly in the present day, religion is too much 
constructed upon the plan of great show with little 
reality. Thus, it evinces no lack of head-know- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 99 

ledge, no paucity of results of a rather astounding 
kind. I make no doubt but that almost every large 
national school could furnish half a dozen boys 
and girls who would chop religious logic with any 
doctor of divinity in the kingdom, and produce 
their scripture proofs for it at every turn, with, 
possibly, more readiness than the doctor. 

But this is not the thing wanted. It is not by 
setting sharp-witted children to exercise their ability 
in hunting out texts for the solution of abstruse 
doctrinal points, and thereby turning the bible into 
a sort of charade book for them to make shrewd 
guess-work with, that anything else, or better, can 
be done than the manufacturing of a succession of 
stereotyped instructors in the like kind of conun- 
drum play; — the cleverest of these children being 
usually in training as future teachers in national 
schools. 

It is by the deeply felt power of religion in the 
tutor's own soul, as the one only principle of human 
conduct ever needed, and ever to be operating ; it 
is by his possessing a living experience of the 
strength of corruption, and a quick apprehension of 
its early assaults upon the mind of youth, that an 
earnest, hopeful appeal can be made to that in the 
child or the young person which responds, after 
the nature of a holy instinct, to every touch of truth, 
and without which response, all religious instruction 
might as well be addressed to the benches and 
walls of the school-room, as to its inhabitants. 



100 REMINISCENCES OF 

But is this appeal made,— and is the response to 
it obtained? and are the subjects on which the 
pupils are examined and addressed, of a kind to in- 
volve either, by being- so direct, so intelligible, and 
so probing, as to come close to the capacity and 
conscience of any child who is old enough to go to 
a national school ? 

I think I should not be afraid to ask every Sun- 
day and national school teacher in the land, if they 
ever expended half an hour at a time, or knew any 
one else to do it, in commenting earnestly and 
with direct personal application to the consciences 
of their young hearers, — on such a text as this 
from the 119th Psalm, or any other of a merely 
practical tendency, and which, being w^holly di- 
vested of all peculiar doctrines, simply embodied 
those great fundamental principles of righteousness, 
w^hich there is scarcely a possibility of " the way- 
faring man though a fool " misunderstanding or 
misapplying. 

I do not believe the thing is 'ever done. Most 
assuredly, I never w^itnessed it, except, as a pretty 
stout determination to teach my own class in my 
own way, enabled me to endeavour at doing so 
myself, when, many years ago I was for some time 
a constant weekly attendant at a national school as 
a teacher and examiner. I have said that I took 
my own way in this respect ; but I must observe in 
passing, that I received an occasional hint that I 
was transgressing in doing so, and that I ought to 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 101 

keep more to the routine of the school ; that is to 
say, I ought to have gone on in the track of those 
orthodox instructors who, Friday after Friday, for 
the space of some seven years or so, I had seen 
sitting in the same place, and doling out the same 
phrases, much as the school-room clock had pro- 
ceeded to tick and strike after one fashion for the 
same space of time. No matter how lifeless, — nor 
how profitless the work ;— it was mapped out accord- 
ing to square and rule, and I was not to be substi- 
tuting any heresies of my own in the room of such 
good old Dunstable doings. 

I heard the transient murmur, it is true ; but it 
was as though I heard it not ; for I went on with 
calm delight in the way wherein, as I believed, the 
good Spirit of the Lord suggested that I should go 
in that particular part of my allotted mission ; and 
amidst the few green pastures and quiet waters that 
refresh the landscape in which remembrance some- 
times feeds, that hour of teaching amongst those 
children is, with me, endearingly conspicuous ; — 
nor do I know that any tribute of praise was ever 
more purely sweet and cheering to my spirit, than 
the passing word I once heard in an accidental visit 
I made at the house of a relative of one of my little 
hearers, expressive of the interest the child took in 
my weekly lectures. That it was an intelligent and 
real interest I could perceive from the quotation of 
my own words, very little altered in the rendering. 
Words, blessed be God ! that a child could under- 



102 REMINISCENCES OF 

stand ; which is more than could be said of many 
other words then and there spoken. 

To possess a clear, constant, hopeful faith in the 
presence and assistance of the Spirit of God in the 
souls both of the teacher and the taught, is the 
grand desideratum in all rehgious education. It is 
always asserted, at least whenever I propound these 
sentiments I find myself invariably met with the 
assertion, that this is the basis on which such in- 
struction is imparted in national and Sunday schools ; 
but the fact is certainly otherwise. Not only is the 
doctrine of the immediate presence and aid of the 
Holy Spirit in the soul not made a prominent part 
of the religious teaching of these schools, but it is 
not made so anywhere ; though it is, of course, 
mixed up with other doctrines, but chiefly as that 
which may be taken for granted. Now, as Miss 
Edgeworth has said most justly, " half the mistakes 
of life arise from people's taking things for granted." 
On this very point of spiritual influence, — what 
darkness and confusion prevail ; and in consequence 
of that darkness and confusion, what practical infide- 
lity, — what loose apprehension of important truths, 
— what insecure and hopeless steps in life, are every- 
where manifested ! Yet, ask any person professing 
to make the precepts of the Bible his rule of life, 
whether he seeks constantly the direction of the 
Spirit of God, and believes himself to be guided in 
his general conduct by its influence, and, beyond 
all doubt, his reply will be in the affirmative ; at all 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 103 

events, he will have no hesitation in saying that he 
hopes and intends it to be so. In short, he takes 
the thing for granted. 

I am quite certain it is what I myself took for 
granted till I was past forty; and 1 dare say I 
should have gone on to do so, but that some re- 
markable, and very afflictive circumstances in my 
personal history, constrained me about that time, 
to seek a deeper and a more influential faith in divine 
things than I found myself possessed of. It was 
nothing on the outside of me, — nothing in the shape 
of doctrinal knowledge (for there I was affluent) 
that was sufficient in that day of storm and tempest 
to stay my soul. I felt the need of something 
within myself to fall back upon, that was wiser and 
better than myself, or anything in the shape of in- 
tellect that I could call mine. To the distinct per- 
ception of what this was, I was first guided by the 
letters of William Law, which a friend at that time 
lent me. What life and power, what strength to 
do or to suffer, did my soul seem to imbibe from 
this passage I 

" God is no otherwise your God but as he is the 
God of your life, manifested in it ; and he can be 
no otherwise the God of your life but as his Spirit 
is living within you. Satan is no other way know- 
able by you, or can have any other fellowship wuth 
you, but as his evil spirit works and manifests itself 
along with the workings of your own spirit. ' Re- 
sist the devil and he will flee from you ; but he is 



104 REMINISCENCES OF 

no where to be resisted but as a working spirit 
within you; therefore, to resist the devil, is to turn 
from the evil thoughts and motions that arise within 
you. ' Turn to God, and he will turn to you ; but 4 
God is an universal spirit which you cannot locally ' 
turn to or from ; therefore, to turn to God, is to 
cleave to those good thoughts and motions which 
proceed from his Holy Spirit dwelling and working 
in you. This is the God of your life; to w^hom 
you are to adhere, listen, and attend ; and this is 
your worshipping him in spirit and in truth. And 
that is the ' devil that goeth about as a roaring 
lion,' who has no voice, but that which he speaks 
within you. Therefore, my friend, be at home, and 
keep close to that which passes within you ; for be 
it what it will, whether it be a good in which you 
delight, or an evil at which you grieve, you could 
have neither the one nor the other, but because a 
holy God of light and love is essentially dwelling 
in you. Seek therefore for no other road, nor call 
anything the way to God, but solely that which his 
eternal, all-creating Word and Spirit work within 
you." 

" This is what I want ! " I said aloud ; " even 
the presence and help of this invisible Mentor.'' I 
saw at once how safe, how secure must be the in- 
terior condition of the creature who watches for, 
and obeys the silent pointings of the Holy Spirit 

* Law's Letters, p. 95, new edition, 1815, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



105 



of Truth. I could perceive with a force and pre- 
cision hitherto unknown to me, the meaning of 
those expressions, " Thy word have I hid within 
my heart, that I might not sin against thee ;" " My 
soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me ac- 
cording to thy word." " I am thy servant, give 
me understanding that I may know thy testimo- 
nies/' " Lord, I am thine, save me." The near- 
ness, the afFectionateness, (with reverence I would 
speak the word,) which this view of the subject 
established between the soul and its Creator, was 
so inexpressibly sweet to me, that, for a time, I 
could do nothing but praise and adore the Provi- 
dence which had brought it to me like bread from 
heaven. From that time to the present hour, I can 
relish no reading, no teaching, no conversation on 
religious topics, no views of morality, no represen- 
tations of human life which do not recognise this 
view of " turning to God, and cleaving to those 
good thoughts and motions which proceed from his 
Holy Spirit dweUing and working in us," as the 
one work and business of the soul that yearns for 
deliverance from evil. As Mr. Law suggests, and, 
as an axiom to which all that is within me yields a 
ready Amen, I " seek for no other road, I call no- 
thing else the way to God, but solely that which 
his eternal, all-creating Word and Spirit work within 
me." 

And surely, in the common-sense view of the 
matter, far more glory must be given to the Crea- 



106 REMINISCENCES OF 

tor by this faith in, and submission to, the power 
and operation of the Holy Spirit in regenerating 
the soul, and " creating it anew unto good works," 
than in the Calvinistic views of an imputed righte- 
ousness, by which it is supposed by the Divine 
Being to be good and holy though it be actually 
polluted with sin. "We then, as w^orkers together 
with him, beseech you also, that ye receive not the 
grace of God in vain," saith the Apostle ; decisively, 
as I conceive, inculcating the great practical pre- 
cept that we are " workers together" with the Holy 
Spirit of God in so far as we make a good use of 
the grace he gives us. Now, I boldly say, that it 
is making worse than no use of it, — that it is turn- 
ing it into licentiousness, when we fill our heads 
with notions that a holy, and heart-searching God 
wall account us to be righteous in any imputed 
way, or in any way at all, but as we have faithfully 
" worked out our salvation" under the dictates and 
help of that manifestation of his own Spirit which 
he has bestowed upon us to profit withal. 

Through much infirmity, and many failures, and 
fearful struggles, no doubt, must this holy work be 
done. Sharp and frequent, beyond all question, 
must, in the nature of things, be the conflicts, 
where the creature's ardent thirst and strong capa- 
city for earthly joy, perpetually excited by outward 
objects and internal wishes, are as perpetually op- 
posed and chastised by the Divine Monitor that 
knows and resists, in us, their ignorant importuni- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 107 

ties. But oh, how sweet and cheering- the well- 
grounded hope, that it is under these exercises and 
" searchings of heart," that the " building fitly- 
framed together,'^ is growing " unto an holy temple 
for the Lord,^^ in which we are " builded together 
for an habitation of God through the Spirit." " No 
chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, 
but rather grievous ; yet afterwards it yieldeth the 
peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are 
exercised thereby .'' 

There is a beautiful and most consolatory prayer 
in the four first verses of the 20th Psalm : " The 
Lord hear thee in the day of trouble, the name of 
the God of Jacob defend thee. Send thee help 
from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of 
Zion. Remember all thy off"erings, and accept thy 
burnt sacrifice. Grant thee according to thine own 
heart, and fulfil all thy counsel." 

Never doubt whether or not God will remember 
your ofi*erings of thought, word, or deed ; for all 
things that have ever had existence, be they good 
or bad, must necessarily remain in existence some- 
where, and in some form, however they may pass 
away from minds and memories, in their present 
state, so imperfect as ours. Every thought, word, 
and deed of every human creature, we may believe, 
will remain and manifest themselves to us, when 
in that altered mode of being into which death will 
introduce us, we shall be fitted to contemplate them 
in the glance of truth and eternity ; a glance which 



108 REMINISCENCES OF 

can know no fractional views and comprehensions, 
but which must at once embrace their entire nature 
and remotest relations. 

Then we shall behold what we have been doing 
in the business of life, and what the wisdom of God 
has made of our doings. Then we shall experience 
that severest of all chastisements, the sight of truth 
beheld too late ; or that most sweet and benign of 
all compensations, the disclosure of our inward 
state as " all glorious," and '* brought unto the 
King in raiment of needlework," whose precious 
threads the Holy Spirit of the Lord has gathered 
out of our living sacrifices of wish and will, and 
woven " with the hand of a cunning workman'^ into 
a robe of righteousness wherewith to clothe us in 
that day I 




THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



109 




CHAPTER IX. 




HERE is no kind of reading* so de- 
lightful to me as autobiography, when 
simple and sincere ; a qualification so 
rarely existing in that department of 
literature, that my enjoyment of it is reduced to 
nearly a nullity. 

It could not, and ought not indeed, to be possible 
for an individual to exhibit such an entirely faithful 
picture of his mind as would admit the public to a 
view of it which is only proper to be laid before his 
Maker. 

Truly and beautifully has a charming poetess 
said — 

" If all the gentlest hearted friends I knew 
Concentred in one heart their gentleness, 
That still grew greater till its poise was less 
For life than pity ; — I should yet be slow- 
To bring my own heart nakedly below 
The palm of such a friend, that he should press 
My false ideal joy, and sickly woe, 
Out to full light and knowledge."* 

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



110 REMINISCENCES OF 

No, it is not meet that too familiar a disclosure 
of personal history should be made public. But it 
does not appear impossible or unseemly, to repre- 
sent it with as near an approach to truth as shall 
render it a kind of mirror wherein other minds may 
behold themselves to a profitable and deeply inter- 
esting purpose. It is a possibility, however, which is 
very rarely realized ; not merely from the proper 
considerations which restrain undue communicative- 
ness, but also from the influence of motives which 
are not quite so justifiable, and which it is scarcely 
necessary to say, arise from self love, and the dis- 
simulation to which that subtle agent prompts the 
mind. 

This obstacle to the integrity of purpose which 
gives its chief value to autobiography, is nowhere 
so formidable as in the cases where one would most 
desire its absence. It is just those of whom we most 
wish and want to know the interior nature, — those 
who as authors, actors, senators, statesmen, or who 
in any kind of character have come before the world, 
that are the least likely to satisfy our longings ; 
and that from the very circumstance which makes 
them of sufficient importance to excite them. It is 
because they are public people, and important peo- 
ple ; because they cannot but be conscious that 
every line they write in the closet will some day 
" be proclaimed on the house-tops," — and that like 
regal personages, they will be sure to have a train 
of observers in their track, let them go which way 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. Ill 

they will ; — it is because of their capacity to tell us 
much, that they usually tell us nothing that is 
worth the hearing". The consciousness that all 
their words are future gold, and that the veriest 
shreds and patches of their pen will be available 
in the market, almost necessarily, suffices to de- 
stroy with its baleful influence, the humble, simple 
spirit of candour wherewith the task of autobiogra- 
phy can alone be properly undertaken. Hence, in 
reading such works it is not by what is said, but 
usually by what is omitted, that the proper estimate 
of the writer's character is to be drawn; for he 
that is fully aware of a rapturous reception from an 
admiring audience, will no more come before them 
in deshabille, than Carlotta Grisi would present 
herself to perform a distinguished pas in her 
dressing gown. 

I am not aware of ever having read more than 
one book in which the writer's interior condition 
was so faithfully unveiled, that 1 laid it down every 
now and then, and much in the same spirit as I 
would have gone to the glass to see how I looked 
externally, I turned my attention inwardly to the 
mirror which honest John Rutty, the quaker, set 
before my mind. 

Here are a few samples, culled at random from 
this curious record. 

1. " The day concluded badly in inordinate pas- 
sion on a sudden attack." 

2. " Is brother vile ; and Dr. vile ; 



112 REMINISCENCES OF 

and my servant vile ? I have been more vile in thy 
presence, Lord, on many occasions/' 

3. " More severe on the offences of others than 
on ray own ; — turn thy anger inwards, hencefor- 
wards." 

4. " Lying too long in bed, disconcerted the 
whole day." 

5. " A frappish, choleric day." 

6. " O my insolence ! What are my troubles 
compared to theirs at Lisbon ! " * 

7. " Anger on importunate and ill-timed teazing 
for money, cast a gloom on this whole day." 

8. " Snappish." 

9. " In the very moment of temptation, God was 
with me." 

10. " It is very hard to say the Lord's prayer 
sincerely." 

11. " Very impatient on my servant^s sickness 
at a critical time." 

12. " Choler reigned in the morning." 

13. " A black evening ; — a fit of downright an- 
ger on a supposed injury, and for want of timely 
resisting, it proceeded. Lord, pardon." 

14. " Principiis obsta, on attacks of anger ; 
others have real causes of sorrow, — thine imagi- 
nary." 

15. " The metaphorical rickets, a real malady of 

* This was written in 1755, the year of the great earth- 
quake at Lisbon. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 113 

the soul analogous to that of the body, viz : a 
counsellor's head (rich|in notions) but a sucking 
infant's limbs (in practice) : Lord, strengthen I " 

16. " God hath shown thee thy picture in two 
of thy acquaintance — dogged and insulting." * 

There may be doubts'^ if this is properly to be 
called autobiography, but there can be none as to 
its being personal experience ; and what could be 
so instructive, what so intensely interesting, if, with 
an eye to God as the i^uthor of all things, and 
piously deducing their particular dispensations from 
the way in which they had, or had not, been obe- 
dient to his requirements as made known to them by 
his Witness in their consciences, — persons were to 
impart instruction and information to their fellow- 



* Dr. John Rutty was a physician of some eminence in 
Dublin where he resided, and where he died in 1776. He 
was in the habit of keeping a spiritual diary, which he left 
for publication after his death, and from which the above 
extracts are taken. 

In justice to his memory I must add, that the Editor of 
this work observes, that *' notwithstanding his many sharp 
animadversions on himself (particularly for moroseness of 
temper) I am warranted to assure the reader, from the tes- 
timony of many of his surviving friends, that they never saw 
any cause to suspect him of it." The testimony concerning 
him in the religious society to which he belonged, is also 
highly favourable to him in that respect. " His temper," 
says the document, " appeared pleasing and well guarded ; 
— mild in reasoning with persons from whom he differed in 
judgment, even on important and interesting subjects." 



114 REMINISCENCES OF 

creatures in the way of relating their personal ex- 
perience ? 

And why should they not ? Simply because they 
have either no such experience to give, or, if they 
have, they dare not do it for fear of being laughed 
at as fanatics or enthusiasts, and in some way or 
another losing caste with the false and frivolous 
part of mankind. 

Rare as it is, and from the nature of the case, 
rare as it must, I suppose, continue to be, to meet 
with a faithful mental history, I still go on hunting 
in the trail of all memoirs, biographies, and auto- 
biographies, in the hope of finding something to 
enrich and confirm my views of human life ; and 
though I seldom or never get anything that has the 
smallest semblance to nature and truth, — yet in the 
absence of both, there is often enfolded a striking 
lesson. 

One book that I have lately read, and which I 
could not rest till I had obtained a sight of, seems 
to me highly illustrative of this. It was rather the 
name of Emerson indeed, as one of the Editors of 
it than anything else, that excited my appetite for 
its perusal ; but still, as memoirs of a woman, and 
a very remarkable one too, in her place and condi- 
tion, I hoped to get some further reach into those 
depths of soul and feeling, which it is peculiarly 
the nature and the province of woman to sound, — 
from the perusal of " Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, 
Marchesa d'Ossoli." 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 115 

And the book is remarkable certainly, and very 
instructive too ; but it is in an incidental and ob- 
scure way ; — ^just in that secret, silent way in which 
everything most impressive and most real in human 
history is commonly imparted to the observer of 
such things. Rely upon it that you will learn no- 
thing by only taking what people set before you. 
Look after that which they keep back, — for there 
the gist of the matter lies. What they do, and 
what they are, that is everybody's history, en- 
closed in the space of a nutshell, as everything true 
is. I am so persuaded of this, that my reading is 
necessarily, very much abridged ; and few are the 
books of which I do not skip at least half. 

There is something in the first glance we cast 
upon a new book, (at least so it is with me) which 
tells at once whether or not it will be pleasantly 
readable. Particular words catch the eye, and 
striking the mind something after the manner in 
which a tuning-fork strikes a piano-forte, they elicit 
a response which is or is not in unison with the 
thoughts they awaken. There are certain terms 
and phrases which in the twinkling of an eye, ex- 
tinguish all my hopes and expectations from a book. 

This is a prejudice, some will say, and should be 
overcome. There may be something of prejudice 
in most instantaneous decisions ; but I have lived 
long enough to have a great respect for first and 
prompt impressions; and in regard to books, I 
scarcely know the occasion in which a glance of 



116 REMINISCENCES OF 

five minutes over a new one, did not suffice to tell 
me its genuine character; and I dare say, most 
readers (by which I mean people who really do 
read a book, not those who look at it) would say 
the same. 

When therefore, in the " Memoirs of Margaret 
Fuller, Marchesa d'Ossoli/' I caught the names of 
Dante, Goethe, Ariosto, and poetical allusions in 
English, German, and Italian to the arts, — to ge- 
nius, and such like spangles, sprinkling almost 
every page, I had a strong presentiment that I was 
to meet with a mind too stilted to furnish her ob- 
servers with the plain homespun which is " your 
only wear," in such a w^orld as this ; — and which is 
so constantly useful, that one is ready to beg, bor- 
row^ or steal a bit of it wherever it can be found. 
Nevertheless I met with much, especially in that 
part of the work which is edited by Mr. Emerson, 
both to instruct and interest; — and in so far as one 
can reduce the inflated terras in which they are 
expressed to their simple purport, many of her own 
statements are marked by great power and truth. 
Throughout the whole, however, one is pained to 
perceive that she is but performing a part in the 
melo-drama of which her imagination makes her 
the heroine, and that scarcely anywhere in the 
book do we meet with the real w^oman, and the real 
heart, as good John Rutty would deal with, and 
exhibit it before the reader. The probability is, 
that it was never faithfully exhibited even before 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 117 

its owner. " She looked upon life," says Mr. 
Emerson, " as an art, and every person not merely 
as an artist, but as a work of art." 

Here is the secret of that want of sympathy and 
approbation which is felt in reading her memoirs. 

" She looked upon herself," again observes the 
acute Emerson, (would that he would give us his 
mental history) " as a living statue which should 
always stand on a polished pedestal, with right 
accessaries, and under the most fitting lights. She 
would have been glad to have everybody so live 
and act. She was annoyed when they did not, 
and when they did not regard her from the point 
of view which alone did justice to her." 

Far from singular is this concentration of the 
mind of a person of genius upon an artistic contem- 
plation of itself. But what a false and fatal one to 
take ! and how, almost invariably, does it so blind 
and dazzle the mental vision, that it is wholly un- 
fitted to behold and understand the simplicity of 
truth, and make that proper application of it to the 
circumstances of life, which can alone deliver us 
from being more or less their victim. 

It is not surprising therefore, that, after having 
been dazzled and bewildered, and except as Mr. 
Emerson is the relator, much mystified by the su- 
perlatives of the poor lady herself and her biogra- 
phers, we arrive at the plain intelligible fact of her 
clandestine marriage with a foreigner younger than 
herself, — of difi'erent tastes, — of insufficient means, 



118 REMINISCENCES OF 

and in so far as one can judge of the case, in every 
respect totally unfit for her. This, however, is the 
best part of the book ; for it presents us with the 
wise and blessed moral which warns all persons of 
genius before the whole powers of the mind are 
given to the sedulous cultivation of accomplish- 
ments, to establish a severe discipline over the 
imagination, that restless and magical faculty, " the 
mistress of witchcrafts," of which it may not be too 
much to say, that directly or indirectly, it is the 
fruitful parent of nearly all the mischief in the 
world. Nowhere is its dangerous influence more 
manifest than in the hearts and destiny of wo- 
men. Educated to be attractive externally, rather 
than intrinsically wise and good, and from their 
position in human affairs, condemned to depend 
upon others for aid and favour at every turn, — the 
whole force of their nature is prone to run out in a 
sickly sort of sentimentality and practising for 
effect, which is, perhaps, more to be dreaded than 
any open violation of truth ; for there we cannot 
be imposed upon to take evil for good; — but, the 
taking Satan himself for an angel of light, is a very 
easy process in lovers of the romantic, who are 
usually skilled performers in those interior theatri- 
cals which cause many hves to be passed in a mere 
succession of fables and representations. 

Had the life of Margaret d'Ossoli been spared, 
it is probable that far more edifying, because more 
real and chastened views of things would have 



I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 119 

occupied her mind, and given value to her publica- 
tions. Whenever distinguished persons come down 
from their pedestal, and mix with the crowd who 
walk upon the ground, and are content to pick up 
from thence such broken fragments of experience 
as will turn to account, and which nobody has a 
chance of finding anywhere else, they speak from 
that in themselves, and address that in their hear- 
ers, which has reason on its side. *• Always address 
yourself," says Dr. Whichcote, " to the reason of 
the thing ; — there is an Almighty power in this." 

But it was this poor lady's melancholy fate in 
returning to her native land after an absence of 
four years, to be shipwrecked with her husband 
and child, when nearly at the end of their voyage 
from Italy to the United States. So unexpected 
and deeply affecting a catastrophe, disarms all cri- 
ticism, and leaves to us only the desire to deduce 
from her Memoirs, the broad, fundamental facts 
that can be generalized into principles ; — a result 
which gives to the study of history, whether it be 
that of nations or of individuals, its legitimate value 
and importance. 

The mind in solitude within itself, continually 
feels a yearning for fellowship and communion with 
its kind, which is not to be satisfied by conventional 
intercourse. It desires that the door of other 
minds should be thrown open, and admission granted 
to it for entrance and observation there ; and though, 
as in the present case, the view obtained is too 



120 REMINISCENCES OF 

much obscured by mistiness and mistake to, be a 
very satisfactory one, it leaves upon the thoughtful 
observer as I have already said, a valuable moral, 
in leaving him deeply impressed with a conviction 
of the necessity of self-control, instituted and di- 
rected by a redeeming principle superior to self. 

In our mysterious and mixed condition, wherein, 
however guarded by outward restraints, or aided 
and comforted by friends, or amused and admired 
by society, our thoughts and feelings (those great 
realities) are all transacted in solitude, and in that 
silent world ivithin which is to all intents and pur- 
poses, our only real world, — how essential is it per- 
petually to inquire, and well understand, what is 
going on, and who prompts and governs there I 

Not that J nor those, be assured, of whom the 
general run of diaries, and memoirs, and prettily- 
phrased epistles, and " rose water" biography tells. 
No, no. Some strange unexpected incident in the 
individual's life, perhaps some wild disproportioned 
marriage, in a word, some quite unforeseen act 
which causes everybody to lift up hands and eyes, 
and exclaim " You surprise me ; who would have 
thought it ! *' these are historians which come forth 
now and then from the silent world to suggest to 
those who " have an ear to hear," the wisdom of 
keeping watch and ward at its portals, of displacing 
self-will as a usurper, and of establishing on its 
throne the rightful governor of those realms, even 
he who says — 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



121 



" Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching 
daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. 

" For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall 
obtain favour of the Lord. 

" But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his 
own soul ; all they that hate me, love death." 
(Proverbs viii. 34—36.) 




122 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER X. 




!^0 intense is the power of self-love 
and self-adoration in all of us till the 
love of God comes in and breaks it 
down, that the real beauty of humi- 
lity is hardly possible to be conceived of by the na- 
tural mind ; but I think some touches of it may be 
felt in the sweet sensations that accompany the 
pity one feels for the sufferings of the innocent and 
the helpless ; such as sick or ill-used infants and 
children, poor animals, or anything else that is op- 
pressed without manifesting any resentment, or 
having the will or power to manifest any, towards 
the oppressor. 

I remember two pictures of extreme simplicity 
both in the conception and execution of them, which 
I could scarcely look at without even painful emo- 
tion, so forcibly did they penetrate to something in 
the depth of my nature that lovingly responded to 
the appeal. One represented a trial for witchcraft 
in the time of James the First,* in which a helpless 



* Exhibited four or five years ago in the Annual Exhibi- 
tion of the Royai Academy. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 123 

old woman was being dragged before a magistrate 
as a witch. The innocence of the poor creature^s 
face, contrasted with the ferociousness of her accu- 
sers, one of whom was holding her cat over her 
head, her powerlessness and submission to her fate, 
and twenty other inexpressibly sweet touches of the 
artist, were quite irresistible. 

The other picture pourtrayed the death of a 
French officer who was standing with his eyes 
bandaged, in front of a row of soldiers with their 
guns presented, and just about to shoot him. This 
would have been simply a very melancholy sight ; 
but the artist, to break one's heart, had represented 
the culprit^s faithful dog jumping up, and fawning, 
-and looking up in his master's face, as if wondering 
why he stood there, and yet, half guessing the 
dreadful cause, looking so full of grief that one 
could almost fancy one heard the whining of the 
poor animal. I do not know what can be at the 
root of the feelings that affect one in these contem- 
plations, unless it be the touching charm of helpless 
humility. 

But why should I be puzzled that I do not know ? 
seeing that we know nothing of the nature of those 
attractions or repulsions which ever and anon 

" Striking tlie electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound," 

wake up associations of love or aversion, delight or 
dislike, which we can neither define nor under- 
stand. 4 



124 REMINISCENCES OF 

That inexplicable feeling to which few persons 
are strangers, which, under a condition perfectly- 
new to us, indicates a reminiscence more or less 
vivid of our having been, on some former occasion, i 
just so circumstanced, gives one of these strokes ' 
upon '' our electric chain" that never fails to set me 
deeply cogitating upon the doctrine of man's pre- 
existence. It is a doctrine, to be sure, that one 
can derive no profit from, except as it conveys an 
impression of our having once been in nearer con- 
nexion with the Author of our being, and a confi- 
dent hope that the broken link in the heavenly 
union will be eventually restored. 

Few things of a visionary and conjectural kind, 
seem to me more forcibly to inspire this idea, than 
the connection which almost invariably exists be- 
tween the perception of moral beauty, and devo- 
tional feeling. There is something so touching, so 
tender, so humble, in all real beauty, that, except 
its appeals are obstructed by pride and unusual 
apathy, we shall perceive them to be generally re- 
ceived with emotions that yearn to express them- 
selves in tears and adoration. 

One would say, that like poor children exiled 
from their father's house, and estranged from his 
loving countenance, we catch in these passing 
gleams, just enough remembrance of the glory and 
goodness of both, to make us languish for the ever- 
lasting joy we know they have in store for us. We 
would " sing again the Lord's song" in our native 



~* THOUGHT AND FEELING. 125 

land, and we believe that we shall do so yet. These 
lovely little irradiations come to cheer and fill us 
full of peace and hope in believing that " this God/' 
this Fountain of beauty and perfection, " is our God, 
and that He will be our guide even unto death." 

How strange beyond all strangeness, and how 
dreadful too, seem those views of religion w^hich in- 
spire terror of that great Being who can only be our 
hope and confidence as we know and contemplate 
him in his scriptural designation of Love. " God 
is Love" — those three words ! Why do people 
preach any other ! and why is anything but Love 
as the healer, the redeemer, the " companion, guide, 
and own familiar friend" of the soul, ever set be- 
fore it as its desideratum ? 

How sorrowful, and how perceptible is the rea- 
son that this is not, and cannot be done, because 
of the intense power and unceasing operation of that 
enmity and pride which separate nearly the whole 
human race from everything that is lovely and 
true. 

Cowper has said — 

" 'Tis pleasant from the loopholes of retreat 
To look at such a world." 

I do not find it so. In fact^ I scarcely dare to look 
at it at all; and when I say this, it is in no spirit 
of presumption w^hich would insolently cry, " Stand 
by, I am holier than thou ;" but under a persuasion 
that where the temperament is peculiarly susceptible 



126 REMINISCENCES OP 

of passing impressions, liable to be taken captive by 
them, and morbidly inclined to dwell upon, and 
magnify evil, the difficulty of recognizing beneath 
the maze of iniquity that surrounds us, the fathom- 
less ocean of Divine Love on which it floats, is so 
overwhelming, that, but for the immortal nature of 
faith and hope, it could not be but that both must 
be shipwTecked. 

I do not think, however, that evil itself offers a 
more saddening subject for contemplation, than 
many of the things which pass for good, and to the 
pursuit of which, so much time, and talent, and 
energy, are constantly devoted. 

If I should say that amongst these, religion itself, 
according to the common acceptation of the term, 
occupies a prominent place, of course it would be 
nothing but my happy insignificance and obscurity 
that would shield me from being pursued with much 
the same outcry wherewith people pursue a mad 
dog. So I shall not say it. But I will, as meekly 
as I can, merely request the courteous reader of 
my lucubrations, to consider what is the distinct 
end and object of all religious teaching. Simplify 
the matter my friend, and put it into the smallest 
possible compass, and then say if the point to which 
all religious instruction tends and at which it ter- 
minates, is not the re-union of the creature with the 
Creator, from whom some terrible lapse of his 
nature has evidently separated him ? for without 
going to the Scriptures to authorize and confirm 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 127 

the existence of this fact (though I will do that 
presently) it is sufficient to appeal to the rational 
faculties of every human being', whether any thing 
could be more strange and astounding, than that a 
pure and holy God should be the Father of so de- 
generate and grovelling a son ; and that the origi- 
nal endowment of his offspring should be " a carnal 
mind at enmity with Himself." I do not know any 
fact in science more demonstratively proved upon 
its own testimony, than that man is a creature fallen 
away from his Creator and the holy life originally 
received from him, into a life of matter, and cor- 
ruption, and sensuality, and self-pleasing, and the 
pursuit of transient, trivial, and false enjoyments ; 
so trivial and so false, even under their most glit- 
tering aspects, that there can scarcely be found the 
individuals so wholly blinded to their contempti- 
bility, as not, under the pressure of disease and the 
prospect of death, to denounce them as delusions, 
and as far as possible, to counsel those they leave 
behind, to devote themselves to better and more 
enduring objects of desire and aim. 

What sentence did Walter Scott ever pen in his 
thousands of pages, — what instruction did he ever 
impart to the world, that equalled in value and 
reality those touching words addressed to his son- 
in-law from the bed of death ! 

" Lockhart, I may have but a minute to speak 
to you. My dear, be a good man ; — be virtuous, 
— be religious, — be a good man. Nothing else will 



128 REIVriNISCENCES OF 

give you any comfort when you come to lie here."* 

I would now turn my reader to the Scriptures 
for confirmation of the point to which I have pre- 
sumed to call his attention. Look at them and 
scan their purport as closely as you can. You will ' 
find that two or three texts will suffice to put you 
in possession of the fact of man's corruption. 

" So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast 
before thee," says the Psalmist ; and again, " there 
is none that doeth good." 

" We ourselves," says the Apostle, " were some- 
time foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers 
lusts and pleasures,-^ — living in malice and envy,— 
hateful, and hating one another.^^ 

How graphic is this picture, — how true in every 
lineament ! Take every member of the sentence, 
and w^here is the human being whose conscience 
does not apply it with, " tJiou art the man ! " 

It is this foolishness, — disobedience, and liability 
to deception, — this thraldom to the dominion of 
" divers lusts and pleasures," — this bitter malignity 
of heart, — " hateful and hating " — so that much 
more than half the hterature, half the intercourse, 
and half the pleasure of half the human beings in 
the world, consist in holding up the other half to 
ridicule and censure, — it is this " earthly, sensual, 
devilish" condition which stands in need of re- 
demption. And here it is. 

* Scott's Life of Lockhart, People's Edition, p. 75o* 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 129 

" After that the kindness and love of God our 
Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but according 
to his mercy he saved us by the washing of rege- 
neration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." 

Now, I would ask every man, woman, or child, 
that was competent to be talked to about religion, 
whether anything can be more simple than what is 
here set before the soul as the means of that re- 
demption which it wants. It cannot be accom- 
plished by works of righteousness undertaken in 
the creature's own strength and will, and as such, 
works which must, necessarily, be defiled by the 
influence of pride and self-conceit ;~^but it is done 
by a process which is figuratively designated as the 
" washing of regeneration." That is to say, " God 
our Saviour " in his mercy and love to his fallen 
and ignorant creature, draws near to him in the 
secret recesses of his heart and conscience, and 
there in a still small voice warns him from evil, or 
prompts him to good, by ever saying to him as oc- 
casions for doubt and danger arise, " this is the 
way, walk ye in it ; " and thus, " renewing him unto 
good works, by the power of the Holy Spirit " 
measurably bestowed according to his need. 

How beautifully is this divine mode of feeding 
the soul, and the nature of the food given to it, 
shadowed forth by the manna in the wilderness ! 

" And when the dew that lay was gone up, be- 
hold upon the face of the wilderness there lay a 

K 



130 REMINISCENCES OF 

small round thing as small as the hoar frost on the 
ground." 

'' This is the bread which the Lord hath given 
you to eat ; " — these small rations of truth which 
you will find ready for you just as you want them ; 
but of which you are to make no store, or magnify 
into works of righteousness that you can call your 
own ; but, in a spirit of child-like dependence, 
trusting to your Father for the supplies of which 
he better knows your need than you do yourself, 
you are to honour him by the obedience of faith ; 
than which, no act of religion you can perform is 
more beneficial to yourself, or glorifying to Him. 

If we have here a simple statement of the case, 
— if all we want to know is our spiritual disease 
and its remedy, — I think I may challenge the 
thoughtful reader to say if that want meets in any 
sufficient degree with its proper and appointed 
supply, in the general nature of religious instruc- 
tion. 

I well recollect the sentiments of disappointment 
(I might use a stronger term) with which I once 
listened to a discourse in London, from a preacher 
whom it was accounted a privilege to hear, and 
whose sermon I certainly prepared myself to listen 
to with due and reverent attention. 

I am not likely indeed to forget the impression, 
which, on that occasion, caused me to ask myself 
what practical good, what addition to experience, 
what yearning of heart to say with the prodigal 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 131 

" I will arise and go to my Father,'* could be hoped 
for, on the part of the congregation, from a disser- 
tation on the use and value of the Athanasian 
Creed, and the various readings of its component 
parts that had been given by this and the other 
commentator, — which, (it being a day that re- 
quired the reading of that portion of the liturgy) 
formed the staple commodity of the whole dis- 
course. 

" All sermons are not thus constructed," you 
will say ; — and " heaven be praised that they are 
not ! " I reply. It is with great satisfaction that I 
readily admit the existence of many zealous, faith- 
ful, honest ministers who, to the best of their be- 
lief, address their hearers in a plain, practical, in- 
telligible way. 

But the '^ best of their belief " seems to me too 
limited, — too straitened, — too much partaking of 
the cuckoo's note ; which surely need not be ; — for, 
although the same few and simple elements serve 
for the basis of all that can be called religion, yet, 
such are the diversity of ways in which the evil 
works that requires the use of religion, that there 
must ever exist an abundant variety of modes in 
which it may be applied. There are but seven 
notes in the gamut, yet they furnish materials for 
ever new delight, and inexhaustible beauty ; — and 
sad indeed would it be, if, at every five out of six 
concerts we attended we heard nothing but sol fa- 
ing. 



II 



132 REMINISCENCES OF 

" Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is h- ■ 
berty ;" — and no one can be actuated by that Spirit 
or speak from its influence, who is in captivity to 
any sect or system, or whose freedom of thought is 
abridged by any considerations respecting his tem- 
poral interest. Such an one must, of necessity, 
talk in trammels ; for let his capacity be as large 
as it may, he is to keep within prescribed limits, 
just as a horse tethered in a meadow can only 
browse in a certain circle, however fresh and ver- 
dant all beyond that circle may be. 

Scarcely any thing can be more fatal to the dif- 
fusion of Truth, than the attempting to imprison it 
in any way, or to subject it to the government of 
opinions and majorities. Truth is not the subject 
of opinion or vote, or compulsion, and never can 
be made so. You may just as well prescribe to 
people how they are to love and hate, as how they 
are to believe. They may agree readily enough 
with what you set before them as their religion, 
because it is much easier to take up with what is 
ready-made to their hand, than to spend time and 
trouble in enquiring for themselves ; but neither 
their verbal assent, nor their endeavours to per- 
suade themselves that it is a genuine one, are worth 
a straw, except as they are actuated by something 
deeper than the submission to custom and authority 
which forms the chief reason wdth most people for 
believing in any thing. 

They talk of making up their opinions about re- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 133 

ligion, and set about doing so very earnestly and 
sincerely ; but the fact is that opinion has as little 
to do with our faith, as it has to do with our hun- 
ger and thirst. We can no more believe a vital 
truth upon the testimony of another person, than 
we can live and breathe by his life and breath. 
The mind may, no doubt, have a certain quantity 
of notions hung upon it, just as clothes are hung 
upon pegs in a wardrobe ; but they will always 
remain as distinct from, and inoperative upon, 
its nature, as the contents of the wardrobe are 
external to the nature and condition of the body. 
It is the office of religious education to develop, 
not to add. You speak (or ought to do) to the 
conscience, which, at once, acknowledges and agrees 
with what you propose, if it is in unity with the 
nature of Truth ; — if not, it has nothing to say to 
you. 

And what a remarkable testimony to the uniting 
power of Truth is it, that, whilst we see no end to 
the differences of opinion in those sectarians who 
build their mode of faith on the letter of Scripture ; 
— one finding salvation only in an adhesion to this 
text, — another in holding fast to the tenets he de- 
clares to be propounded in another, clean contrary 
to it ; — adult baptism with one party, — infant bap- 
tism with another, —no baptism at all with a third ; 
— sprinkling here, — immersion there, — and nothing 
but the confusion of Babel everywhere ; — those who 
turn to an inward instructor, and, as much as pos- 



134 KEMINISCENCES OF 



1 

lich II 



sible, endeavour to be guided by the voice which 
says " my son give me thy heart, and let thine eye 
observe my ways," are universally of one mind, 
and cannot possibly be otherwise, because they ac- 
knowledge only one lawgiver, and one law, and 
both of these divine. 

The whole of faith and obedience, and all that is 
comprised in the term rehgion, may, I think, be 
simplified into a sense of dependence upon God. 
Let our mental powers and resources be what they 
may, the solemn and incomprehensible mystery of 
our being, and of our ultimate destiny, is so near, 
so real, and so overwhelming, that scarcely any 
person is so obtuse, as not occasionally to feel al- 
most appalled in the consideration of his belonging 
to he knows not whom. 

I remember that when I was little more than a 
child, I have sometimes, while lying awake in the 
night, been visited with terrible apprehensions and 
inexplicable dread, at the thought of my own ex- 
istence ; but I had no idea that other youthful 
minds had ever been similarly exercised, till, in 
lately reading the memoirs of Margaret Fuller, I 
found my own early experience thus literally tran- 
scribed in hers : 

" I remembered," she says, " how, as a little 
child, I had stopped myself one day on the stairs, 
and asked how I came here ? How is it that I seem 
to be this Margaret Fuller ? What does it mean ? 
What shall I do about it ? — I remembered all the 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 135 

times and ways in which the same thought had re- 
turned."* 

Unquestionably, this natural and awful thought 
would occur to almost everybody, and awaken in 
them the sense of dependence which is nature's 
own foundation for pious trust and hope, were it 
not drowned by the greater part of the world in the 
pleasures and pursuits of time and sense. Every 
man " is a god unto himself, and does that which 
is right in his own eyes," until sorrow or sickness, 
with the prospect of death, suddenly overtake him, 
and then he finds he is not his own property, — he 
is dependent upon he knows not what, — but he is 
sure it must be something, — and something very 
powerful. So then he sets himself to his prayers 
or his priest, according to the fashion in which 
he has been trained, and prepares to make it out 
as well as he can. Now, had this sense of depend- 
ence been made the rule of his life, of his affec- 
tions, and of his prospects, had it been cultivated 
like any other of his innate good principles, would 
it not have done its own blessed and natural work? 
and linked him to his heavenly Father just as a 
child is linked by nature to its earthly parent ? 
Assuredly it would. There is a natural necessity 
for the soul to depend upon God ; it makes itself 
felt in that yearning for divine help and pity, and 



Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, vol. i. p. 184. 



138 REMINISCENCES OF 

that instinctive turning towards the Almighty, 
which always accompanies affliction. 

Beautiful is that word of the Apostle, " ye have 
received (that is ye have known and cherished in 
yourselves) the spirit of adoption whereby we cry 
Abba Father.'^ And again he says, " likewise the 
Spirit helpeth our infirmities ; for we know not 
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit 
maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered/^ What thoughtful, earnest, 
loving heart but knows the power of these groans 
that cannot be uttered, and the sweetness of pour- 
ing them forth before Him who has been with the 
helpless soul throughout its whole earthly pilgrim- 
age ! — and who, in that sin, — in that repentance, 
—in that glittering snare, — in that dangerous hour, 
— in that trying season of bodily pain, — in that 
" time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord," 
in all that memory can recount, was ever near — 
ever counselling — ever consoling, and ever forgiv- 
ing ! 

May God give us faith to trust in, and be taught 
by Him I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 137 





CHAPTER XL 

^ HILST writing these pages, and giv- 
ing the reins to my pen on the sub- 
ject of religion with a Ucense which 
I fear may be displeasing to some 
readers, I have often washed by way of explaining 
the cause of my taking so positive a side of the 
question, to relate some of the circumstances of my 
mental history ; — but ever, as this desire has pre- 
sented itself, I have been prevented from fulfilling 
it by a dread of thrusting myself, as an individual, 
into notice ; — a feeling which, when people have 
passed the period of three score, and value no 
worldly possessions so much as ease and safety, it 
seems but prudent to entertain. 

It appears, however, to me as if I were internally 
called upon to give " a reason for the hope that is 
in me ; " — since, if w^e address the public at all in 
a didactic form, we are, as I conceive, bound to 
confirm those addresses with whatever we have to 
produce as personal experience. Nothing is sure 
to us but what we have acquired in that way ; and 



138 REMINISCENCES OF 

those who tell us what they know^ and can set their 
seal to, as incontrovertibly found by them to be 
true, render us, if but little service, still, the best 
service that they can. 

I had another motive too, for this desire to give 
a slight sketch of my mind's history ; — for, rigidly 
forbearing to meddle with external facts, except as 
I might be absolutely obliged so to do for the elu- 
cidation of my somewhat erratic course as to reli- 
gious pursuits, — it is to my interior experience I 
would confine myself. The motive to which I 
allude, was a wish to escape a charge of mistiness 
on the subject of religion which is brought against 
a recent little work of mine, in a certain periodical. 

" Of the author's religious belief," says the critic, 
" it is difficult to speak. His favourite doctrine is 
the presence of an interior light in the soul of man ; 
but of any means or channels to which the commu- 
nication of that heavenly light is divinely annexed, 
he has no mention. In truth, a mistiness pervades 
all the directly religious conversations, which would 
seem to have been purposely circumfused." * 

Nothing is much more difficult than to render 
abstract and general statements sufficiently clear 
and decisive, to put the reader in full possession of 
the writer's meaning ; and, as I shall, probably, 
never again appear before the world as an author, 
and I would willingly obviate as far as I can, any 

* Guardian — Review of *' Visiting my Relations." 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 139 

mistiness or confusion which may have hung upon 
the previous exhibition of my rehgious sentiments, 
it seems to me that now or never is the time for 
me to leave with my fellow mortals a little narra- 
tive of mental experience, of which I can only say 
that it is true. Much comfort, and occasionally 
even joy, has been my portion in remembering the 
way in which the Lord my God has led me through 
the waste howling wilderness of this world ; and if 
any fellow pilgrim in that strange land shall, by the 
perusal of these my closing pages, be stimulated to 
look for his guidance and help where I have been 
taught to seek for them, I can never regret the dis- 
closure I am now about to make; for I have felt 
for a great many pages past that I should certainly 
have to do it before I ended. 

I am strangely puzzled in the outset of my task 
by a dilemma from which, although there is an easy 
exit, I confess I am extremely unwilling to extri- 
cate myself. I am quite persuaded, nevertheless, 
that it must be done; and that, triumphant, and 
what is better, secure as is the position I occupy, 
by being recognized in my authorship as of the 
nobler sex, I must state that it is a woman who 
comes before the public in the present work as its 
author. 

It will be the natural effect of this announcement 
to denude my further statements of much value, 
except in the estimation of that generous fraction 
of the world who accord to women the right of pri- 



140 REMINISCENCES OF 

vate judgment, and the capability of forming it on 
subjects of mind and conscience. They ought to 
possess this faculty, seeing that those domestic and 
intimate associations of heart and intellect which 
constitute the source of earthly felicity, are emi- 
nently within their ken, and in a great measure 
within their province. But be this as it may, what- 
ever be the strength and expansion of man's intel- 
lect, the necessity for learning to endure patiently, 
falls largely upon woman ; whose patrimony, for 
the most part, is little else than a profound capacity 
for sorrow. 

It was a great inheritance of this kind that de- 
volved to me, in the temperament I derived from 
my father, a vivacious Irishman, endowed with a 
remarkable portion of the impetuosity, propensity 
to blunder, and inexplicable confusions which ren- 
der that unhappy nation a sort of anomaly in the 
creation. I think the very greatest of his mistakes 
was that of taking me home from boarding-school 
when I was just thirteen, in order, nominally, that 
I might be companionable to my mother, (of whom 
I was the youngest and only child she had left as 
a home resident — the others being disposed of by 
marriage and other ways,) and also to show proper 
obedience in a state of pupilage ; for as my educa- 
tion could not, even in my father's rapid way of 
jumping to conclusions, be supposed to be finished, 
I was furnished with instructors in such branches 
of polite learning and accomplishment, as in those 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 141 

days of simplicity when ologies as yet were not, suf- 
ficed for a young lady in the middle ranks of life. 

I say that nominally I was taken home to be 
docile^, and finish my studies, and make my mother 
happy as her companion, my father being frequently 
absent from home by reason of business engage- 
ments and other causes ; and a few years later, 
perhaps I might have been sufficiently subdued by 
school discipline, and better matured faculties of 
reflection, to have submitted to the few restraints 
by which my residence under the parental roof 
limited my wall ; but I was then too young to have 
the least conception of the use and value of self- 
control, or any other idea of human life, but that 
people were to enjoy it as much as they could. 
Accordingly, to the full extent of such joys as Misses 
of thirteen covet, T made myself the possessor, and 
especially in the article of novel reading, in w^hich 
I was to be called learned for my years. I was 
rather straitened in my stock of companions, both 
my father and mother being somewhat advanced in 
life, and quitting the stage, as far as consisted in 
entering much into society, when I came upon it ; 
I therefore took up with w^hat I could get as asso- 
ciates ; and the nearest at hand being the cook and 
the housemaid, I generally transferred myself to 
the kitchen when my father and mother composed 
themselves for their after dinner*s nap. Of the in- 
tercourse then and there carried on between me 
and my comrades for the time being, I can only re- 



142 REMINISCENCES OF 

member that it was more merry than wise; and 
that none of my developing faculties were more 
potently elicited by it, than the propensity for fun, 
and turning things and people into ridicule, which 
was rather predominant in my nature. 

It must not be imagined that I was left to run 
wild in this way without an occasional check from 
my parents. Very slightly, and but seldom was it 
bestowed on the part of my mother ; who, not par- 
ticularly happy herself in some of her domestic 
relations, was too well pleased to be amused with 
my capacity for entertaining her, to run the hazard 
of disturbing it with homilies that I detested and 
resented ; but from my father it came pretty sharply, 
suddenly, and sometimes oftener than was wanted. 
Nothing could be more obvious than that I was 
running to waste in a fearful way, and demon- 
strating my views of things and people with a vi- 
vacity and energy less becoming than remarkable 
in so very young a person ; and that it would be 
good for me to be curbed rather more than a little ; 
but that it should be done after the manner in 
which you would curb a restive horse (I do not 
mean by the application of a whip, but of sharp 
words), was not quite so good ; inasmuch as sharp 
words addressed to some natures, like rough treat- 
ment to some horses, tend to make them worse 
than they were before. 

It was so with me. The indignation, the proud 
resentment with which I encountered reproof so 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 143 

administered, produced results, which, deepening 
in their nature from year to year, rendered my po- 
sition towards my poor father and his to me, one 
of the strangest and the most painful that I think 
it would be possible for parent and child to expe- 
rience. And the stranger, and the more painful 
was it, because we each of us possessed beneath the 
bitter and vindictive traits of character that caused 
so much exasperation of feeling on both sides, a 
fund of affectionate and genial sympathies that only 
wanted the right training and regulation to have 
made us happy in the link which nature had esta- 
blished between us. But as I could not endure to 
be treated harshly, and resented every sort of oppo- 
sition that came in the form of a command, and the 
nature that had me in check was my very counter- 
part, augmented by the possession of authority and 
a still stronger will, I could not be otherwise than 
most unhappy ; and I was so as a very young girl, 
and still more so as a young woman. By that 
time, the mode of reproving which was distasteful 
to me as a child, had become so insupportable, as to 
excite in me a way of opposing it by harangues (for 
the most part true enough, but) so abominably im- 
pertinent, that almost any thing must have seemed 
better than to run the hazard of producing them. 
On this account I suppose it was, that gradually as 
I grew older, my father left me to myself, appa- 
rently with a silent disdain of interfering, except by 
occasional sarcasms, with any of my proceedings. 



144 REMINISCENCES OF 

Though less irritating, this was scarcely a less 
wounding- way of dealinor with me. It was inex- 
pressibly painful. No words that I could make use 
of would be strong enough to portray the anguish 
that rent my heart when strangers alluded to us 
as likely to be great comforts to one another. 
" Oh, would to God that we were ! " I often said 
to myself; when the poor old man, advancing in 
years, unhappy too, in the course of his only son, 
seemed to stand so much m-ore than ever in need 
of the consolations of a dutiful daughter. 

Most deeply and constantly did my better nature 
groan to administer those consolations ; for happily, 
—providentially, let me rather say, — amidst all this 
wreck of capabilities for good, something valuable 
in the shape of conscientiousness, and a love of 
truth and virtue survived within me. And oh, 
when occasions came, and, in the domestic life of 
twenty years be sure that strokes of affliction 
brought them, when the softer and better parts of 
both hearts were touched and drawn for a little in- 
terval towards each other, what a draught of saving 
health it was ! what a gentle shower upon dried and 
v;ithered instincts ! what a removal of an avalanche 
of misery that bowed me to the earth I " Why 
should it not be always so ? " I asked myself. But 
the depressing response was too soon given in the 
rapid falling back to old habits of reserve, silence, 
and gloom. 

Nothing as it seems to me is so totally unconquer- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 145 

able, nothing" so fearfully and irremediably oppres- 
sive, as the feeling of reserve and distance which 
uncongenial habits originate between relations, more 
particularly between parents and children. There 
is usually, in such ties, a natural shrinking from 
perfectly free and confidential intercourse. The 
authority to reprove on the one side, and the innate 
dislike of reproof on the other, united to the sort of 
awe which the idea of a ruler inspires, combine, I 
suppose, to produce in some instances this state of 
congealed affections. 

If it should appear in any degree unseemly for 
me thus to dwell upon circumstances of so private 
a character, I can only plead in excuse for it that 
it would be totally impossible for me to relate my 
mental history without distinctly tracing it to the 
particular influence which this unhappy domestic 
position exercised upon the whole course of my 
life. Painful indeed was that influence, as I have 
sufficiently demonstrated ; but it had a rich blessing 
enfolded in it, and one which the predominance of 
the religious sentiment in my nature rendered 
largely available. I cannot recollect the time in 
which I was not the better for sorrow ; for I can- 
not remember the distress of any kind that did not, 
as by an instinct, carry me straight to God, as a 
child when vexed runs to its mother for help and 
comfort. And here, as a physical fact, that may 
not be without its significance to the thoughtful 
observer of nature, 1 may mention a circumstance 

L 



146 REMINISCENCES OF 

that possibly carries with it some solution of the 
rather singular fact of a child of ten years old un- 
der a deep sense of injury and injustice, hastening 
to her own little room, shutting the door, and 
kneeling down to implore with sobs and tears of 
God to comfort her, as I well remember doing on 
one occasion when, about that age, I had been un- 
kindly treated, or rather, injudiciously ; for the lec- 
ture that w^ounded me was certainly wanted ; only 
the words and way in which it was delivered, some- 
thing worse than annihilated all the benefit it was 
designed to convey. The circumstance to which I 
allude, was once, and only once, with affecting ear- 
nestness, brought before me by my mother on some 
occasion of disturbance between me and my father. 
She had sometimes thought, she said, that the 
cause of the wretched estrangement which existed 
betw^een him and me, had its origin in the misery 
that his restlessness and irritability of temper (al- 
ways a disturbing force to everybody) had more 
particularly occasioned her during her pregnancy 
with me, than with any other of her children — " I 
never lived so unhappily with him as during that 
time,'^ she said. She did not add, but from her 
devotional nature I could feel assured of the fact, 
that she never lived so much in the habit of prayer. 
Her unborn offspring had need of the act as well 
as herself; and if erroneous, it has been still very 
sweet to me to believe that I benefited both by 
her sorrow and her supplications ; though possibly, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 147 

in the mysterious operation of physical causes, 1 
might inherit from her troubled mind many strange 
and melancholy feelings in relation to my other 
parent. 

Let me, however, in justice to my poor father, 
state, that his faults were never of an immoral liind. 
He was a strictly honest, benevolent, and on the 
whole, a generous man ; and, from first to last, in 
spite of all hinderances, my mother was devotedly 
attached to him, as, in his eccentric, Irish way, he 
was also to her ; and very sure I am that he would 
have felled any body to the earth, who occasioned 
her a thousandth part of the uneasiness that he 
himself did. 

• In the meanwhile that I was thus unhappy in my 
connexion with him, I was truly loving and beloved 
in regard to my mother; — though being not the 
governed, but the governor there, I was, I deeply 
lament to say, a long way from exhibiting towards 
her the docility and dutifulness which are hard ac- 
quisitions in the way of behaviour for the young 
and the wilful to manifest towards the old. I was 
certainly not amiable. The irascible and bitter 
qualities which gave to my nature its fire and force, 
not having been in any proper way restrained and 
regulated, ran out like ugly weeds into a degree of 
self-love and self-pleasing which I did not recog- 
nise as a sin, till the selfishness and ingratitude of 
others against myself, occasioned me to remember 
that I had been guilty of it. Solemn and holy are 



148 REMINISCENCES OF 



1 

h to I 



the seasons in which the events of life preach 
us ; — how many, and how precious have been their 
sermons to me ! and how have they rendered a life 
of loneliness a never ceasing witness to the divine 
truth which tells us that '^ whatsoever a man sow- 
eth that shall he also reap/' 

Even so ! — and for ever blessed be the name of 
the " God of recompenses who doth and who will 
requite ! " — but who, whilst he wounds, does with 
the very stroke, administer the balm of healing, and 
say to the contrite spirit, " for a small moment 
have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I 
gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from 
thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness 
will I have mercy on thee." 

Amongst the other influences which operated 
very potently upon the development of my mind, 
and far more favourably than did my domestic po- 
sition, was my place of abode, and the society to 
which it introduced me. 

My paternal home was in a university town ; a 
circumstance that afforded me intellectual advan- 
tages which are not to be enjoyed anywhere else, 
except in the high aristocratic circles to which per- 
sons in the grade of life I occupied have but a 
very limited access. My father's acquaintance with 
the members of the university, and indeed, latterly 
with everybod}^, was confined to very few indivi- 
duals ; but it embraced some highly gifted persons, 
and amongst others one whom it may suffice per- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 149 

haps if in these pages I simply call the Professor ; 
that being" the name he bore in virtue of an office 
he held in the university. He was old enough to 
be my father at the time of my introduction to him 
when I was about nineteen ; an introduction which 
led to a lengthened and useful friendship of nearly 
forty years. The first link between us was formed 
by my possessing a native talent for music, which 
though never cultivated as it might have been, had 
I chosen to endure the usual modes of practice and 
labour by which pupils in that science attain to 
excellence, was yet sufficiently good to procure me 
considerable notice as no ordinary performer. It 
was not, however, so much the mode of my per- 
formance, though I may presume to say that that 
was generally acceptable, as the style of music I 
selected, which afforded pleasure to my audience ; 
and so particularly to the Professor, that he became 
a frequent dropper in of an evening at my father's 
house, for the sake of listening to what he called 
" a little bit " of Corelli, — Handel, — Geminiani, — 
Scarlatti, &c. ; from whose works my own peculiar 
taste led me to select and play different pieces 
without book, in my own peculiar way. A very 
classical taste for music prevailed at that time 
amongst some of the senior members of the univer- 
sity ; and many were the private concerts at which 
I had an opportunity, which was not lost upon me, 
of highly improving my taste for the compositions 
of the old masters. 



150 REMINISCENCES OF 

Added to the pleasure which the Professor took 
in my music, he was gratified in lending such aid 
to the cultivation of my intellect, as his own well 
stored and accomplished mind rendered it very 
easy and natural for him to do, without any definite 
purpose or efi'ort to instruct me. He saw me as 
a young enthusiastic creature, full of dangerous 
power, but I believe I must add in my own behalf, 
full also of a thirst for genuine truth and beauty, 
and a capacity for rapidly discriminating and pro- 
perly appropriating it, on which nothing in the 
shape of valuable remark was thrown away. Thus, 
in talking with us as we sat by the fire (and though 
made up of such incongruous materials, we were a 
good audience) he would amuse us with anecdotes 
and remarks upon books and people, which, in re- 
spect to the former, usually had the efi'ect of my 
next morning making an application to some friend, 
through whose aid I could immediately procure 
from the Public library the work he had quoted. 
He lent me many books also from his own library, 
and always the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews ; 
which were works of great use and influence in di- 
recting my inquiries to valuable subjects of study. 
In short, in a way quite curious from its concise- 
ness, simplicity, and natural emanation from the 
course of circumstances, he did all, I may truly 
say, that ever was done in an external way for 
my mental cultivation. Much was not wanted 
where a hint sufiiced ; and when two or three 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 151 

careless unconscious words of quotation had the 
effect, perhaps, of introducing me to months of 
study. 

All this however, though good, was merely in- 
tellectual; and, except as it nourished what good 
sense I might possess, was more influential in cul- 
tivating a sentiment of pride and self-sufficiency, 
than any more amiable tendencies. My father, 
who, as an Irishman, was, of course, exceedingly 
keen in a knowledge of character, (I might rather 
say in a knowledge of spirits, for his faculty of 
perception went deeper than the superficies of cha- 
racter) and who was shrewd enough to discern that 
although the Professor's conversation was addressed 
to them, it was rather to my mind, than to his or 
my mother's, that he looked for the full compre- 
hension and enjoyment of his discourse, grew more 
and more indisposed to regard me with kindness. 

As my natural disposition to let myself out in 
words, (though seldom active in his presence) be- 
gan about this time to take a literary tendency, it 
generated, I believe, a double feeling in his heart, 
of delight and dislike, which, in a more kindly na- 
ture, would have led probably, to the predominance 
of the agreeable one ; but which with him, poor 
soul ! bhghted and disappointed as he was in his ex- 
pectations of comfort in me, conducted him straight 
to a morbid suspicion and jealousy of my fancied 
superiority, which, though it did not break out in 
language, lurked painfully in his manner. 



152 REMINISCENCES OF 

It was in this way that I passed the period of my 
life from nineteen to thirty. It is an obvious ques- 
tion on the part of my reader, whether during this 
interval, I had no opportunity of changing- my des- 
tiny by the usual chances of matrimony which fall 
to the lot of most young women. I had such 
chances, but not from those I could love ; — and I 
am thankful to say, that although there could be 
few cases in which such an opportunity of altering 
a domestic lot would have been more desirable than 
in mine, I never, upon any occasion, for a single 
moment entertained a \vish to marry, merely to 
obtain a change of circumstances ; — on the con- 
trary, 1 think I could sooner have died than have 
united myself to any man who had not the full pos- 
session of my heart. But though I did not marry, 
it does not follow that I should not in the matter of 
ardent but hopeless attachment, drink to the dregs 
that bitter cup which but few women escape at least 
from tasting. It may be taken for granted, that the 
overwhelming influence " which links to the soul 
one thought alone, and that a thought of anguish,'* 
was not likely to be wanting in such a nature as 
mine ; — and being taken for granted, we may let 
that subject drop. 

I have said that my parents were getting old, 
and retiring from society when I was just entering 
into it ; which, of course, very much restricted my 
enjoyments in that way ; — still, my musical abilities 
kept me in some request as a visitor at different 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 153 

parties, and I had thus enough of recreation to 
satisfy me. The circumstances of my destiny 
tended to drive me to inward, not outward re- 
sources ; and I think the chief, and I am sure, the 
best part of my satisfaction with my lot, arose from 
the ample means it afforded me for thought and 
reflection. I passed a great part of my time in my 
own room; a much greater, indeed, than I ought 
to, and than I should have done, for I loved to be 
with my mother, but that it had grown into an un- 
happy instinct with me to get as much as possible 
out of my father's w^ay. 

It will appear inevitable, I suppose, that being so 
much of a reader, I should also be touched with a 
desire to try my hand as a writer. My first efforts 
of this sort in the form of two little tales, though 
printed, and secretly published, by the aid of an 
acquaintance of mine much connected with books 
and authors, who had married one of my very inti- 
mate friends, were so hastily and crudely concocted 
(my usual vehemence being overwhelming under a 
desire to see myself in print) that, as Hume says 
of the first edition of his history, they " fell dead- 
born from the press ; " and I believe scarcely any- 
body beyond the publisher and myself knew any- 
thing about them, I showed them after they were 
published, to the Professor ; who gave me very 
wholesom.e advice on the subject; — spoke highly 
of my productions as the efforts of a girl making 
things out as well as she could in solitude; — but 



I 



154 REMINISCENCES OF 

counselled my being quiet and silent about the I 
matter. Any assistance he could be of in future, I 
in the way of reading* my manuscript before it was | 
sent to a publisher, he said that he should be pleased 
to render me. Indeed, he urged it as essential to 
my success, that some other and more experienced 
person than myself should look it over. 

Thus encouraged, I set myself to a better regu- 
lated way of writing ; and after the lapse of two or 
three years, my occupation being suspended during 
that time by the frequent pauses which I had sense 
enough to know would be beneficial to its success, 
I completed a work in three volumes, which, in 
pursuance of his advice and offer to assist me, I 
submitted to the Professor's judgment. 

Great was my dismay, and not small my dis- 
pleasure, when he had had it a fortnight or so, to 
find, on walking home with him one night from a 
party, and eagerly asking how he liked it, that he 
had put it aside in a drawer till he had finished 
delivering his lectures ; " when," he said, " he 
should be better able to attend to it as he wished." 
" Your lectures. Professor ! — why you will be a 
month about them." " Thereabouts," he replied. 
" Then I am sure I wont wait all that time. I 
will send for it back to-morrow." " If you do, you 
wont get it," was his answer ; and little regarding 
the evaporation of my disappointment and dis- 
pleasure, he trotted me along at his usual pace of 
some five miles an hour, and good humouredly 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 155 

wishing me good night, he left me at my father's 
gate, — so annoyed and angry, that had the manu- 
script been within my reach, it was quite possible I 
might have ended the matter by throwing it into 
the fire. 

The stipulated time for his reading it came in 
due course ; and occasionally, when I encountered 
him in my walks, while he was engaged on it, he 
would stop a moment, and speak encouragingly, 
and- say, " as far as I have gone, it does you credit.'* 
At length I missed seeing him for a week ; an un- 
usual thing, since, in every street of the place, you 
were scarcely more sure of encountering pavement 
and houses, than of meeting him flying from one 
side of the w^ay to another, as this and that person 
to whom he had a word to say, crossed his path. 
It happened, however, that I had not in this interval 
met with him anywhere. At length, he one day 
caught sight of me, and coming up, he took my 
arm in his, and led me on a little way. " I have 
nearly done your book," said he ; — " it is good, — 
very good ; — and he smiled with affectionate ear- 
nestness as he added, " now don't be impatient; — 
don't be hurrying the thing into publication. I 
have seldom read a work of the kind, of which I 
think better. Be quiet about it ; be advised, — be 
guided by me." He was then off, and " my bo- 
som's lord sat lightly on his throne ; " for the 
manuscript would not now be consigned to oblivion, 
or burnt in a pet, — but would be published, and 



156 REMINISCENCES OF 

probably under very good auspices, if the Professor 
took it under his patronage. There was one fea- 
ture in the case that was saddening ; and that was 
the impossibility of cheering my parents with a | 
knowledge of any good fortune that might attend i 
me as an author. It was impossible ; not only be- 
cause I knew too well my father's strange twists 
and turns of feeling, not to be assured that however 
proud and delighted he would be (and he would 
have been both in no ordinary degree) with my 
success, yet it would inevitably have led to such 
occasional taunts on the score of its unduly puffing 
me up, as I should have resented in a way to pro- 
duce incalculable misery to us all. Added to this, 
the Professor with a prudence which made a strong 
ingredient in his character, had enjoined me not to 
speak of the matter to any one, till time had stamped 
it with success or failure ; and for my poor father 
to have known it, would have been to set a death- 
warrant upon all privacy on the subject. He would 
not indeed, have talked to me about it ; but he 
would have talked to everybody else. It may be 
thought that I might have told my mother; — but 
she always suffered so much from the anger of my 
father, if he discovered that she was in possession 
of any piece of intelligence that was kept back from 
him, that she had often desired me never to inform 
her of anything that she was not at liberty to com- 
municate to him. 

At length the Professor's verdict was given in a 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 157 

little note which, two or three days after the inter- 
view to which I have alluded, he put into my hand, 
as I was bidding him good night, at a party where 
we had spent the evening together. The opening 
sentence of it was this : — 

" Dear Miss 



" It would be very improper of me not to tell you, 
that I have been affected during the latter pages of 
your novel, in a way that I cannot describe. I read 
on and on, with the tears continually in my eyes ; 
and at last I ended in a sort of agony. I cannot 
expect that you will affect others in this way; for 
there are certain chords that vibrate in my mind, 
and those you have laid your hand upon." Then, 
with a few words suggestive of the steps I was to 
take towards improving and finally fitting it for pub- 
lication, he concluded. 

There was a story current, of the Professor's 
having in early life been the victim of hopeless love, 
and, in consequence of that disappointment, remain- 
ing a confirmed bachelor, which probably had suffi- 
cient truth in it to account for the expression re- 
specting " certain chords in his mind,^^ as well as 
for the deep and unusual way in which the perusal 
of my manuscript had impressed him. 

It looks so like a trick to attract notice to the 
work, that I unwillingly specify its "title; but it 
seems due to the natural curiosity of the reader to 
state that it was called " The Favourite of Nature ;" 



158 REMINISCENCES OF 

a title given to it by the Professor ; that which I 
had adopted being objected to by the publisher as 
trivial and unattractive. 

The publication of this book,^ which, through . 
the Professor's kind influence, was dedicated to, i 
and brought out under the patronage and favour of 
Mrs. Joanna Baillie, was so successful, that a third 
edition of it was called for in the course of a few 
months. A " sough" began to arise in my native 
place that I was the author of it ; but in London, I 
believe, it was for some time attributed to Lady 
Dacre ; so at least I learned from her Ladyship's 
letter to the Professor on the subject ; which, with 
several from other parties, he was pleased in send- 
ing to me, as encouraging and favourable testimony 
in its behalf. 

I never avowed myself its author during the hfe- 
time of my parents; who remained ignorant of it 
to their death. They both however read it ; for I 
was in the habit of laying books of entertainment 
in my poor father's way ; not only because I was 
really glad to furnish him with all the small means 
of recreation which I could, but also that it was a 
prodigious help in keeping off disquietude, to put 
him under the influence of an interesting novel ; 
and through the unwearied kindness of some of my 
intimate friends who had the power of supplying 
me with them, there was scarcely any work of cele- 

* In 1821. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 159 

brity in that way, that I could not give him the 
reading" of. 

Curiously afiPecting was it to me, to watch my 
dear mother, and steal a look at her, from the piano 
(at which I w^as generally seated for the greater 
part of most evenings), in order that I might gather 
what impression the perusal of my book made upon 
her. 

" Poor thing I " she softly exclaimed to herself, 
as once she laid it down to wipe her eyes. 

I always thought, and still think, that my father 
detected me by the internal evidence of the book, 
as its author. He sat to the reading of it with ear- 
nest and fixed attention ; but every now and then 
some caustic remark about the heroine's character, 
which he denounced as *' very futile," inclined me 
to think that his morbid habit of being resolved to 
find fault, was stimulated by much the same cause 
as usual. 

It was a triumphant era in my history which the 
successful publication of that book produced ; and 
it not only brought me fame, but profit also. Mr. 
Whittaker, who, on the Professor's recommenda- 
tion, had undertaken the publication on the terms 
of his encountering the risk and dividing with me 
the profits, had written me w^ord a few months after 
its first appearance, that he hoped to hand me a hun- 
dred pounds at the ensuing Christmas, as my share 
of the profits ; — which he did do. I scarcely think 
that on that occasion I could have refrained from 



160 REMINISCENCES OF 

making my dear mother a partaker in ray pleasure; 
but before that time arrived, most unexpectedly, by 
a sudden seizure, that beloved parent, the one stay 
and solace of my home existence, was taken from 
me. 

Such an exigence! such a demand as it made 
upon all that I possessed of interior strength, I had 
never yet experienced ! I could only turn for help 
to God; and pray to Him to succour and support 
me, and aid me to do my duty to my poor, bereaved, 
unhappy father ! 

How well do I remember (can I ever forget itljl 
the morning after my mother's death, which tood 
place suddenly at midnight — when I rose desolat^ 
and broken-hearted from my sleepless pillow, long- 
ing, yet dreading to go and offer to my father the 
consolation, which, owing to the dismay and confu- 
sion produced by the night's affliction, I had as yet . 
been incapable of extending to him. How keen is 
the recollection of the feelings with which, as soon 
as I was dressed, I hastened down to the parlour 
where I knew he was sitting. I can see even yet, 
the mournful shake of his head, with which with- 
out speaking, he noticed my entrance. I can recall 
with little less than the emotion I then experienced, 
the gushing tears, the deep, deep sobs of anguish, 
with which I hastened up and kissed him, and, as 
well as I could, gave utterance to the words " My 
dear father ^ — I will do all I can to make you 
happy." 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



161 



It was enough I The pent up channel of his 
strong affections at once broke forth in expressions 
of surprised dehght ; and out of the bosom of our 
deepest woe, the Giver of all good enriched us with 
a gleam of comfort, such as we had never yet been 
the means of imparting to each other. 




M 



162 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER XIL 




^T was not long that my poor father 
and I were thrown together in our 
new circumstances. His health had 
been dechning for some time ; and 
in the course of a few months he followed my mo- 
ther to the grave. 

It was not in his nature, nor in mine, nor in the 
nature of the things that belonged to our position, 
to prevent its being one of much and painful em- 
barrassment, though we both did our best to ame- 
liorate it. So great is the power of habit, and more 
particularly a habit of feeling, that scarcely any in- 
fluence will suffice to counteract its sure and steady 
dominion over the mind in which it has once se- 
cured a place. Still, I had the great and cheering 
satisfaction of knowing that I was of use and value 
to him ; and that though his inveterate custom of 
turning the worst side of his nature upon his do- 
mestic ties, was not, and could not^ be eradicated, 
it was in a measure subdued ; and that however he 
carried matters towards myself, he spoke of me to 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 163 

others as the prop and solace of his bereaved and 
sorrowful condition. 

I was about thirty-two years of age, when, by 
his death, I was left entirely to my own disposal, 
with a sufficiency of means for all the comfort and 
enjoyment that was good for me. I possessed a 
competence in the way of inheritance ; and as I was 
now pursuing the path to fortune which my success 
as a novelist had opened up to me, I had an ampli- 
tude of resources which precluded all anxiety as to 
pecuniary matters. Mr. Whittaker had purchased 
the copyright of the " Favourite of Nature," and of 
'' Osmond," which succeeded it, for five hundred 
pounds ; and at my father's death I had another 
work in hand, called " Trials," for which, on its 
completion, he paid me two hundred and fifty 
pounds more. All this was very pleasant, and made 
the occupation of great importance ; but the sim- 
plicity and charm of it was dead and buried under 
the grovelling desires, the panting eagerness, the 
hateful appetite for money, which so easy an acqui- 
sition of it excited in my nature. The delightful 
world of fancy which I had loved for its own sake 
whilst writing the " Favourite of Nature,'^ the calm 
and useful reflections with which I then took time 
to enrich my work, and the wholesome pause of a 
few weeks to let it cool, and to refresh myself in 
order that I might pursue it v^rith greater advantage, 
were wholly gone. My time was now put up at a 
premium, and so were my words and sentences ; a 



164 REMINISCENCES OF 

view of the case which naturally generated haste 
and driving to put them together ; and a counting 
of lines and pages to see how much of the commo- 
dity I had got ready for the market. These were 
virtually the motives that governed my exertions, 
though I did not perceive it then to be the case. 
Yet I remember occasionally asking the Professor 
if there was not a hazard of my out-writing my- 
self, by producing my works in so rapid a succes- 
sion ? 

He thought people might bear with one about 
every year or so, was his reply ; and for four or 
five years I supplied the public with a fresh novel. 
My hand was then arrested, and the pursuit con- 
cluded, by a train of circumstances, which, as di- 
rectly leading to results that bore a potent influence 
upon the residue of my days, as far at least as I 
have yet passed, or expect to pass it, I must now 
revert to. 

I remained for the greater part of the first year 
after my father's death, in the house he had inha- 
bited, and which had been the only home I had yet 
known. I lived there in comparative retirement ; 
and very solemn and sad were often my thoughts 
and feelings, when I missed the familiar forms with 
whom I had been so long and so constantly asso- 
ciated in that now deserted dwelling. Even the 
uncongenial temper and ways of my poor old father, 
I thought that I could have been glad again to 
bear, for the sake of feeling that I belonged to him. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 165 

Now, I belonged to nobody; and bitter was the 
thought of ray isolation. 

Poor fathers and mothers ! often so lightly set 
by whilst here, — how surely, except where hearts 
are strangely hardened, are they remembered with 
a regret which the fulfilment of duty, or its neglect, 
renders soothing or agonizing. Mine was at that 
time of a mixed nature. I was conscious that I 
had not been what I ought to have been to either 
of my parents ; but I was more disposed to dwell 
upon the mistakes on their part which had so 
greatly tended to render me a source of trouble to 
them, than upon my own want of submission and 
obedience. I had not lived sufficiently long under 
the teaching of experience, to take the full and 
comprehensive view of the case, which I have since 
been able to do. 

The winter passed away, and with the return of 
spring, my spirits regained their usual tone. As 
the estate had then to be sold, it became a question 
where I was to set up my rest. I had arrived at 
an age when youth w^as over, but not danger ; espe- 
cially to a person just dawning into notice, and be- 
ginning to drink of the intoxicating potion of popu- 
larity ; a person too, so alive to sensation, and so 
much its victim as myself. I was quite aware of 
the peril of my position, and which being, as I be- 
lieved, rather increased by my place of residence, 
I thought that it would be advisable to seek for a 
permanent one elsewhere. I had friends in Lon- 



166 REMINISCENCES OF 

don who wished to receive me as an inmate of their 
family, and I rather leaned towards a purpose of 
becoming so. 

" You had better be somebody here, than nobody 
there," said the Professor; with whom I talked 
over my, as yet, undefined intentions ; for though 
not properly my counsellor on matters of so per- 
sonal and intimate a character, he had a way of 
throwing off hints about things of daily and domestic 
life, which, concise and careless as they were, and 
dropped in a way that plainly enough said, " these 
are matters out of my ken," — were full of wisdom 
and practical usefulness. 

On the whole then, and as a step more consonant 
to my wishes than any other I could take, I re- 
solved to remain in my native place, though in an- 
other dwelling. 

How wonderful are the results that spring from 
apparently the most insignificant causes ! Where 
is the thoughtful man or woman to be found, of a 
sufficiently advanced stage of existence, who, in 
reviewing their lives, could not write a volume were 
they to detail the seemingly trivial circumstances, so 
easy to have avoided, so strange to have submitted 
to, which were yet so influential in their destiny, 
that every part of it could be traced to their occur- 
rence ? 

It was so with me at this juncture. Had I taken 
any other abode, — had I but been successful in my 
search elsewhere^ my whole future fate had been 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 167 

totally different. But things happened well, though 
strangely; and I have never ceased to bless the 
Providence that guided me to a residence under 

the roof of Mrs. S ; a lady who was, in the 

largest sense of the term, a high religious professor. 
As the daughter of one, and the sister of three 
clergymen, she had formerly occupied a far higher 
station in society than that of keeping a day school ; 
an employment, in which, assisted by three of her 
daughters, I found her engaged at my first intro- 
duction to her. I had known her by reputation 
some time as a fervent follower of Mr. Simeon's ; 
and when, after vain inquiries here and there for a 
suitable residence, an intimate friend, who had chil- 
dren at her school, suggested to me that Mrs. S — — - 
had apartments to let, I immediately repudiated her 
house as an abode. 

" Just think," said I, " of her trying to convert 
me ! and if she did not do this, of her haranguing 
me on the iniquity of my going out to parties two 
or three times a week, and coming home at mid- 
night or later ! " a case of frequent occurrence ; for 
after I got into notice as a successful author, my 
sphere of visiting was so rapidly extending, that 
few were the evenings I passed alone. 

" Oh, as for that, replied my friend, " you need 
make no farther acquaintance than you like with 
her ; and as your maid will sit up for you when you 
are out, what can it signify to her how late you 
stay ? But to make all sure in this respect, sup- 



168 REMINISCENCES OF 

pose you tell her your plans of life, and stipulate 
for no interruption to them on her part." On this 
way of putting the question, I agreed to wait on 
Mrs. S and talk matters over. 

I found her extremely pleasant, sociable, and 
good-humoured; quite as reasonable as I could 
wish, and a great deal more so than I expected, 
touching the tender point of my visiting as often, 
and staying as late upon my visits as I liked. I 
may shortly say, that I took her apartments, and 
established myself in her house. 

It was at a time of year when the University 
being about to disperse for the long vacation, the 
season of visiting was pretty well over. Still I had 
sufficient of it upon my hands, to keep me so much 
engaged during the first three weeks of my resi- 
dence under her roof, that I had exchanged only a 
few words of civil greeting with her when we met 
accidentally on the stairs. At the end of that time, 
finding myself with a vacant evening before me, I 
sent my maid about seven o'clock, with my compli- 
ments, and I should be glad of her company to take 
tea with me if she were disengaged. She returned 
me a very civil an^er, that she had drunk tea two 
hours before, but if I would accept of her company 
after I had finished my own, she would be very 
happy to spend an hour with me ; a proposal which 
of course I accepted. 

As our conversation was exclusively on the sub- 
ject of religion, it being the only one on which she 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 169 

ever spoke, I may as well give a brief sketch of 
what at this time were my own sentiments on that 
important point ; if any I could be said to possess 
that partook of a marked and distinct character. 
But I scarcely think that I can better describe 
them, than by saying that I had a deep, loving con- 
fidence and faith in God, as a Being full of wisdom 
and compassion, and who, through every trial of 
suffering or temptation with which he permitted his 
creatures to be exercised, had only their ultimate 
happiness and everlasting blessedness in view. 

As for the doctrines of Divine wrath, eternal 
punishment, reprobation, election, and the rest of 
it, I had doubtless heard the names, but I knew 
nothing of the nature, as preached and taught by 
Calvinistic divines. The ministry I had been ac- 
customed in my youth (and till within a few years, 
when things altered for the better) to attend, was 
of the sleepy, vapid kind, which, some five and forty 
years ago, usually emanated from those sleek, cosey 
looking members of the University, who once a 
week officiated in the parish church of some little 
benefice in the town belonging to their college ; and 
who, when in the pulpit, always seemed as if they 
would have been more natural, truthful, and in 
every sense of the word, more at their ease, over a 
bottle of port in the combination room. Right jo- 
cund gentlemen many of them were ; skilful at a 
rubber, not unapt at flirtation, cm fait at the news 
and politics of the day, and acceptable everywhere 



170 REMINISCENCES OF 

as efficient aids-de-camp in tea-table intercourse. 
I dare say there is scarcely a genuine specimen of 
the class left. It was rapidly lessening in numbers 
at the time of which I am speaking ; but I had from 
my earliest years, under a succession of such pas- 
tors, been so lulled into apathy on the subject of 
sermons, as rarely to consider it worth while to 
make an effort to attend to them, even when they 
were of a superior order, and delivered in a more 
spiritual way. 

Thus much premised, it will, I hope, seem less 
strange than it otherwise would, that in haranguing 
on the two great doctrines of original sin and the 
atonement, which, under one modification or an- 
other, formed the whole sum and substance of a 

discourse that lasted till midnight, Mrs. S 

should have brought such novel subjects before my 
thoughts, that I more than once expressed the won- 
der with which they filled me. She had a ready 
solution for my ignorance, in their never having 
been preached at the place of worship I attended ; 
for in her estimation, the ministry of Mr. Simeon, 
and some two or three more, monopolized all the 
truth, or, as she called it, " the gospel," that was to 
be had in the place. 

" I had no idea you made so much use of the 
Saviour,"' was, I remember, one of the expressions 
of surprise that escaped me, and which occasioned 
her to clap her hands with joy, as with glistening 
eyes she replied, 



I 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 171 

" That's it, my dear lady I that's just the whole 
of the case. A sinner and a Saviour ! ^' 

These words on both sides, I distinctly remember 
at the interval of nearly thirty years ; but I retain 
too general an impression of the interview, to at- 
tempt at deducing from it any sort of faithful dia- 
logue. 

I may shortly say, that she left me deeply and 
profitably impressed with a new view of myself, as 
a creature " born in sin, and shapen in iniquity.'^ 
The doctrine of original corruption could have been 
addressed to no one more ready to receive it than 
myself. It was a doctrine which, till then, I had 
held in such a loose, vague sort of way, and under 
so many qualifications and restrictions, as virtually 
to reduce it to a nullity; but now brought home to 
me with the illustration of text upon text (for, al- 
most without a figure, it might be affirmed of Mrs. 
S — — , that " she had the Bible at her fingers' 
ends,") and confirmed by the voice of the " Amen, 
the faithful and true witness," in my own heart, — I 
saw as by a light from heaven, that it was a doc- 
trine which revealed the one great disease and 
plague spot of the human race. With respect to 
the remedy, I can remember the exact words I 

made use of, after Mrs. S had laboured the 

point of assuring me, and had confirmed her as- 
surances with the most appropriate texts, that all we 
had to do, under a sense of guilt and pollution, was 
" to wash and be clean." 



172 REMINISCENCES OF 

'' But how wash, Mrs. S ? What do the 

words imply ? I cannot understand them except ia 
a spiritual and figurative sense." 

" Of course," she said, " they could not be un- 
derstood in any other ; " but ever as I pressed her 
to give me her meaning in some definite and spe- 
cific terms, she answered me with texts which just 
as much required to be interpreted, as that on which 
I was enquiring. 

The outward blood shed on the cross at Jeru- 
salem, was the remedy to which all her answers, 
and all the Scriptures which she quoted, applied. — 
A spiritual Redeemer, — and a holy, internal re- 
demption, I could understand ; — but this mixing of 
an external and material object with it, perplexed 
me in a painful degree. On the whole however, I 
obtained great benefit from our interview, in the 
clear contemplation to which it brought me of the 
corruption of human nature. I saw that I had been 
greatly too lenient in only supposing that it had its 
weaknesses and infirmities. I could perceive that, 
whilst possessing a capability of morality and virtue, 
(though greatly indebted for this, to the assistance 
of pride and vain glory) it was the slave of self- 
love, and an alien to the pure and holy nature of a 
God of all perfection. I can truly say I longed to 
" lay hold upon eternal life ;" a scriptural precept, 
which amongst others, she suggested as a command 
to cleave to Christ. I can now distinctly under- 
stand, that, so far as her conceptions of redemption 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 173 

meant any real purification and cleansing of heart, 
she must have arrived at the same result to which 
I have myself been conducted, and where I now 
rest ; and where, as I believe, everybody must rest 
who clearly discerns, and ardently desires, to be 
delivered from the power of internal evil;— for, 
when we avoid the debateable and circuitous ground 
of religious creeds and systems, and come straight 
to the practical point where every creed and system 
that ever was composed or compiled must even- 
tually centre, — we find all genuine faith to consist 
in the conscious and influential belief of the indivi- 
dual in the presence and agency of the Spirit of 
God within the soul. Every external object of be- 
lief must be brought inward, and spirituahzed and 
simplified into this ; — or what is it ? Give it any 
other name or nature than an ever-living, ever- 
acting principle of confidence in God, founded on a 
knowledge, not a notion, of his nature of boundless 
mercy, and inefiable, unfathomable love and wisdom, 
revealed by the Spirit of Truth to the soul, — and, 
again I ask, what is it ? 

I have said that I can now understand that, in 

so far as the religion of Mrs. S had any truth 

and comfort in it, it must, when stripped of all ex- 
trinsic mixture and confusion, have been the same 
as that in which I now rest ; but, as she then pro- 
pounded it to me, it brought me no rest, nor any- 
thing else but mystery and incongruity. 

" Only believe ; " was her unvarying reply to my 



174 REMINISCENCES OF 

expressions of doubt and difficulty. The obvious 
necessity of possessing a distinct knowledge of the 
object of faith, to make it any faith at all, I did not 
at the time observe or remark to her upon; for|! 
her ardour and delight in seeing that she had - 
awakened some reflection in me, and the undoubt- 
edly genuine nature of her feelings, impressed me 
so much, that I really almost longed to be of one 
mind with her. The facility of the mode in which 
we were made righteous, and on w^hich she de- 
scanted so triumphantly, struck me also as singu- 
larly desirable. 

" It seems too good to be true ; " I remember, 
w^as one of my remarks upon it ; — and one which 
occasioned her again to clap her hands with joy, 
and exclaim, 

" That's it, my dear lady ! It is the very easiness 
of the work that makes its glory. ' Believe on the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' " 

" But then Mrs. S , is there nothing for me 

to do?" 

" Nothing. — You are not to defile the Lord's 
work by mixing it with your filthy rags of righ- 
teousness." 

" Strange this ! " I thought ; when I mused 
over the matter by myself. I could not make it 
out, but I certainly wished to do so ; for so easy a 
method of being delivered from guilt, had a great 
charm in it. 

I need scarcely say that this interview was fol- 
lowed by many more; in all of which she pro- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 175 

nounced me to be in a growing state ; — and, so far 
as my head was filling with notions and doctrines, 
I suppose I might be advancing into a new phase 
of faith. At all events, I made rapid progress into 
that stage of it which consisted in decrying the 
purposes and pursuits of everybody who did not 
think with me ; and I had a grim, dreary satisfac- 
tion, whenever I was out of humour with any of 
my former associates, in thinking that I was in a 
much safer condition than they were. Still, with 
all the latent bitterness of my own nature, and the 
fiery Calvinism of Mrs. S to aid it in the de- 
nunciatory way, I confess I could not, without great 
uneasiness, contemplate the everlasting perdition 
of some of my dear old comrades, as inevitable. 
Some five or six of them, I must, at all hazards, 
labour to convert ; and as one of the oldest and 
most esteemed, I took the Professor in hand. 

What arguments we had, again and again, when 
he dropped in for half an hour in the evening ! and 
how well do I recollect, on one occasion, when he 
came to meet a lady who was a mutual friend of us 
both, but who having married and settled at a dis- 
tance, was then only on a visit to her friends, what 
a miserable, self-reproving creature, my propensity 
to indulge in these theological harangues, occasioned 
me to be. Of course I never talked of anything 
hut theology in those days ; and as there was only 
my friend (whom I wished also to convert) pre- 
sent, in addition to the Professor, I plunged into 
the subject wholly unrestrained. Neither of my 



176 REMINISCENCES OF 

companions would have anything to say to my Cal- 
vinism ; which the Professor opposed with quota- 
tions from Paley. Paley, of course, I held in ex- 
treme contempt, as an evangelical doctor ; scarcely 
acknowledging him to be a believer at all ; and 

certainly not one in the sense which Mrs. S 

had taught me to attach to the term. 

The Professor, who was an ardent admirer of 
Paley, reproved my observations as extreme, not 
to say absurd ; and added that the only objection 
which my 'party could make to Paley, was that he 
was too sensible for them. I got excessively angry, 
and, in the heat of the moment, not perceiving the 
caricature which my vehemence produced, I began 
- to talk of Christian meekness and humility as evi- 
dences of Gospel faith, of which a man, built up as 
Paley was, in the pride of intellect, could not even 
comprehend the meaning. I set against the merits 
of his sermons, on which the Professor pronounced 
a high eulogium, the divine beatitudes in the ser- 
mon on the mount ; repeating them by heart, and 
stopping every now and then to ask if Paley had a 
sentiment in all his works like this or that ? More 
particularly I paused at " Blessed are the meek," — 
Was Paley meek ? Was there anything indicative 
of humility in any page of any sermon that he ever 
wrote ? At which interrogation, not very gently 
delivered, the Professor leaving me to carry on my 
queries as best I liked, took up a writing case that 
was at hand, and quietly sitting down at the table, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 177 

he wrote a letter, doubled it up, directed, sealed 
and put it in his pocket, with the intention I sup- 
pose, of dropping it in the post in his way home ; 
then putting on his gown, and saying to my friend 
a few words expressive of his wish to see her be- 
fore she quitted the place, he shook hands with me, 
bid us both good night, and was off. 

This calm way of resisting my excitement, effec- 
tually arrested its force ; and I scarcely knew how 
to be angry in meeting with a smile from my friend, 
as I said to her, " The Professor has had enough 
of it." 

" Perhaps it was a little incongruous," she qui- 
etly observed, " that, in expatiating upon the sub- 
ject of meekness, you should be quite so much 
excited." 

I was subdued enough for the rest of the even- 
ing ; and the reflections to which I was left, on the 
departure of my friend, tended greatly to increase 
that subjugation. I felt, with painful humiliation, 
that I had manifested nothing so distinctly, and 
convinced my hearers of nothing so forcibly, as of 
the intemperate and ungoverned character of my 
own feelings. My thoughts were most harassing, 
most degrading ; yet amidst their distressing pres- 
sure, a holy, yet evanescent sentiment was also 
present, which, in the depth of my being, gave a 
meek testimony to a better way ; and which prompt- 
ed me to tears, and earnest supplications that I 
might find it. 

N 



178 



REMINISCENCES OF 





CHAPTER XIII. 

^ S I was interested, and, after a fashion, 
instructed by the conversation of Mrs. 

S I became sufficiently attached 

to her to find pleasure in my residence 
at her house. INIy apartments and mode of life 
were perfectly distinct from hers ; but scarcely a 
day passed, in which, either at my coming in or go- 
ing out, I did not drop into her room, and, whilst 
she was starching, and ironing, or cooking the din- 
ner (for her daughters carried on the business of 
the school) pursue my spiritual enquiries. 

I also descanted long and largely, upon my per- 
sonal condition of trial and temptation, and my want 
of a stable resting place of hope and comfort. If 
she had done nothing else for me, she had effectu- 
ally disturbed my peace of mind ; but, as she said, 
and with great truth, that it was a false peace, (if 
peace indeed, I had ever known in the interior of 
my heart) there was nothing cut to waste in scat- 
tering it to the winds. 

*• What hast thou to do with peace, in drinking 
the waters of Sihor ? " she would say. 






THOUGHT AND FEELING. 179 

And here, as it occurs to me that the readers of 
my former work,* if they recollect the sketch there 
given of Mrs. Lane, will now be at no loss to guess 
the original of it, I would observe, and the few who 

may remember Mrs. S will, I am sure, confirm 

the observation, that, although that character has 
been condemned in some of the reviews, as even 
" a gross caricature," the fact is, that it is perfectly 
tame and spiritless by the side of the original. 

I dared not then, nor do I now dare, to attempt 
any extended detail of the extraordinary quotations 
from Scripture, and the grotesque application of 
them, which she contrived to interweave in her dis- 
course. I am fully persuaded that any representa- 
tion which I could give of her, as she is now before 
my mind's eye, turning the sausages in the frying- 
pan, — or folding*' collars ^nd iiandkerchiefs, — or 
ironing them, — whilst in the midst of such of these 
employments as happened to be going on, 'twas 
" many a holy text around she strewed," — I am 
convinced, I say, that any picture I could paint of 
her thus engaged, would be weak and ineffective 
compared with the raciness and spirit of the actual 
scene. 

It was a most incongruous affair, beyond all 
question ; but it w^as lively and encouraging to an 
anxious enquirer. Not a particle of denunciation 
had she for me so long as I was her patient listener. 



I 



* Visiting my Relatioffs.^ . ,v 



180 REMINISCENCES OF 

and promising disciple, and, by the real disquietude 
and conflict of my spirit, inspired her with a good 
hope that I should eventually, as she said, " come 
out, and be separate, and touch no more the unclean 
thing." At present she considered me as in a tran- 
sition state; though, truth to say, it was a very 
equivocal one in respect to the " coming out " from 
the intellectual, and highly accomplished circle 
which now constituted the orbit wherein I revolved. 
As long, however, as 1 anchored in sight of the 
beacon she exhibited to me, she felt sure that I 
should not drift out, and be wholly lost on the dan- 
gerous ocean that surrounded me. 

Never was there a more cheerful ministry than 
hers for docile hearers; and I was docile as a 
hearer, though, as yet, not much to be reported of 
as a doer. I was also fond of hearing her talk for 
talking s sake, even if the subject of her loquacity 
had not been of so stimulating a kind ; for she was 
a woman of great natural powers of mind, though 
rather of the imaginative cast. She was fond of 
poetry, and might be said to have Shakespeare 
almost as much by heart as the Scriptures ; and a 
quotation from the poet was quite as prompt, and 
scarcely less often made use of, than one from the 
Prophets. This, I believe, was an arrow from her 
quiver which she levelled at the peculiarity of my 
case ; and because she desired to become all things 
to me, in order to win me over to the right (that is 
to her) way of thinking. As she, no doubt, con- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 181 

sidered me at that time, to be more accessible on 
the side of taste and fancy than of conscience, she 
directed her artillery upon that quarter. 

I well remember one of her Shakesperian quo- 
tations which was so apt and striking, that I re- 
peated it to the Professor; who, like myself, had 
overlooked it in the great poet^s writings; and 
greatly was he, as I had been, impressed with the 
sentiment in " Measure for Measure " which, whilst 
one day setting before me the extent of divine love 
and mercy evinced in the work of human redemp- 
tion, she thus quoted ; 

" Why, all the souls that are, were forfeit once, 
And he that might the 'vantage best have ta'en, 
Found out the remedy.'' 

When, to the vivacity and variety of her mental 

endowments, Mrs. S united great evenness of 

temper, and gaiety of heart, it will not be thought 
surprising that I should have derived real pleasure 
from her society. 

Her daughters partook of her temperament, and, 
together with their mother, were simple, cheerful 
creatures, more unsophisticated, and unconscious 
of the world and all its details, than it had ever yet 
been my lot to come in contact with. They were 
industrious in their employment, contented with 
their lot, and kindly disposed towards one another. 
There was a kind of indifference in respect to every 
thing and everybody out of their own domestic 
circle, which gave them a peculiarity that did not 



182 REMINISCENCES OF 

displease, though it rather puzzled me, to under- 
stand. After- events enabled me to trace it to the 
operation of pride ; a sentiment which, in its largest 
development, they one and all possessed. It is one 
however, which works well in producing steadiness 
of purpose, and constancy of attachment. 

It was this steadiness in adhering to a purpose 
and a point, which, even when applied to erroneous 
designs, has something dignified in it, that excited 
my regard, and increased my respect for them ; 
not, alas, because it assimilate'd with, — but because 
it was so much in contrast to, my own restlessness, 
and consequent infirmity of purpose. I cannot say 
how it is with others, but I perceive something in 
my interior nature, which always inclines me to 
reverence, and to covet those qualities in which 
I am the most deficient. The very terms that de- 
scribe such qualities, I have sometimes found suf- 
ficient to elicit a feeling that seems to be akin to 
their nature. Meekness of wisdom, patience, still- 
ness, humility, often have these words been to me, 
in themselves, a prayer and a sermon ; and never 
have I found myself in association with calm, firm, 
self-controlled individuals, but I have felt disposed 
almost to reverence them for their superiority to 
myself. 

It was this sort of superiority, which, greatly as 
it perplexed me to account for it, rendered the so- 
ciety of these young people, a sort of refuge to me. 
Their few simple words of surprise at any of my 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 183 

erratic impulses, as, perplexed and unhappy, and 
supposing that change of scene might help me, I 
sometimes announced a sudden purpose of going 
here — there — anywhere, to-morrow, or, at the latest 
the day after ; their plain, steady counsels to be still, 
strengthened by some apt word of scripture, were 
inexpressibly useful and valuable to one who always 
seemed safest and wisest when brought under any 
body's care and guidance, rather than her own. 

The young girls themselves, to whom my impe- 
tuosity and worldliness afforded a never ceasing 
source of wonder and amusement, became on their 
part devotedly attached to me, " Here's dearest 
Ma'am ! " was their usual exclamation at the sight 
of me; whilst " dearest ma'am's" motley, but very 
real disquietudes on the subject of her visitings and 
their pleasures, and her conscience and its pains, 
presented materials for a confession, on which, in 
their plain direct manner, they had generally a word 
to say, that, for the time, served as a quietus. 

It becomes proper for me now to state, that, 
much as my mind was disturbed by the ministra- 
tions of Mrs. S , and great as was the per- 
plexity of purpose as to my habits and pursuits 
which she had occasioned me, the tone of her ex- 
hortations was of somewhat too low a character, 
too deficient in wisdom, and too much wanting in 
delicacy of feeling, to assimilate sufficiently well 
with my views of religion, to incline me wholly to 
succumb to its influence. But there was another 



184 REMINISCENCES OF 

influence at this time in operation, which had far 
more potency of effect upon me, than any with 
which I had yet been approached ; and this was the 
ministry of Mr. Simeon, to which until this time I 
was entirely a stranger, although my father was a 
regular attendant at his church every Sunday and 
Thursday evening for some years. I do not believe 
that this was from any particular pleasure or benefit 
that he conceived himself to derive there ; but the 
fact was, that from the time (some fourteen years 
before his death) of his having been the subject of 
a paralytic seizure, he had, under natural appre- 
hensions of the result, been very properly anxious 
to prepare himself for it, by availing himself of all 
the religious aid and consolation which fell in his 
way. Nothing would have induced him to quit his 
parish church when service was performed there ; 
but being closed on the Sunday evening, he resorted 
to that of Mr. Simeon with most unswerving con- 
stancy. He seldom made any comment to my 
mother (he never commented on anything to me) 
as to the effect which his attendance at it produced 
upon his mind; and when he did drop a word, it 
was generally to say, " how very odd Simeon was 
to-night ! " so that the little which he did manifest 
in the way of opinion, could not be said to be of a 
very favourable kind. 

A much more vivid testimony to the merits of 
Mr. Simeon, was given in his kitchen every week, 
by an honest, humble peasant, Hving at Trumping- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 185 

ton, whom he fell in with in his walks ; and whom, 
on entering into conversation with, he found to 
walk two miles every Sunday to hear Mr. Simeon, 
contentedly going without his dinner, for the sake 
of the spiritual refreshment which the sermon af- 
forded him. My father was pleased with the man, 
who was, in truth, a worthy person in his line of 
life, and desired him to call at our house when 
church was over, and take his dinner there. For 
fourteen years after that time, " Master Starn," 
which was his mode of appellation with the ser- 
vants, was never missing at his Sunday dinner in 
our kitchen ; and never, as I was informed by an 
old servant who had lived with us from my child- 
hood, without his remarking at his first entrance, 
" what a sarment we have had sure-^j/ / " a remark, 
I am sorry to say, not quite so reverently repeated 
by old Martha, or commented upon by me, as, from 
the depths of his heart, it had been uttered by 
" Master Starn/' 

The very name of Mr. Simeon was at that time, 
and had been from my earliest youth, associated in 
my mind with absurdity, and perhaps something 
worse. I had a very near relation who was a 
fellow of Mr. Simeon's college, whose wicked nar- 
rations touching that good man's rather grotesque 
peculiarities, had greatly tended to nourish such 
ideas, as so far as I had any on the subject, 
rendered it only a ridiculous one to me. But the 
truth is, I never thought about it at all, except as 



186 RExMINISCENCES OF 

occasionally, an agreeable friend proposed to drop 
in for an hour, when I generally said, " let it be 
Thursday or Sunday evening;" a request which 
arose from my habit of feeling more unrestrained 
and joyous in my father's absence, and consequently 
helping others also to feel so. 

This was all that I knew of Mr. Simeon, when 

Mrs. S strongly urged me "just to go and 

hear him." " There can be no harm in that, my 
dear lady," she said. I did not reply that I thought 
there would be the harm of my getting laughed at 
if it were known ; but I could not help imagining to 

myself and seeing me streaming out with 

the rest of the congregation of Trinity Church, and 
the result of such a sight ! It happened, however, 
that one Sunday evening, not long after my first in- 
terview with Mrs. S finding my self alone and 

listless, it occurred to me that let what might come 
of it, I would go to Trinity Church. I stole in 
there at the httle side door, and asked to be shown 
to the seat of a friend, which was the one my father 
had always occupied. It was a calm, sweet evening 
in the month of May, and my feelings, always ac- 
cessible to the influence of music, were melted into 
a melancholy that was more tender than painful, 
as, during the opening hymn, which was very de- 
votionally, and very beautifully sung on the part of 
the congregation, 1 remembered my poor old fa- 
ther, and thought how much more than possible it 
was, that in the very place I occupied, he had 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 187 

spread before the Lord, a heart oppressed with 
sources of disquietude, with which I was not re- 
motely, nor sUghtly associated. The reminiscence, 
and the thoughts it awakened, were fraught with an 
earnestness of regret and contrition, which well 
prepared me to benefit by whatever of good, Mr. 
Simeon might have to propose ; but still I scarcely 
expected him to excite me to more than a respectful 
attention to his discourse. I was wholly unprepared 
for the touching, — the heart-appealing power, with 
which the fervour of his manner, and the deep de- 
votional tone of his opening prayer, affected me. 
It might be, and I suppose it was, that some pecu- 
liar spiritual exercise was upon him ; for never af- 
terwards was the efi*ect he produced upon me so 
potent as at that time. 

" Is this the man," I said to myself, " that I 
have presumptuously derided, and ignorantly held 
in contempt?" 

Nothing, during the whole of his discourse (which 
was on the use and necessity of trial and affliction) 
was so distinctly present with me, as regret that I 
should have lived for so many years within reach of 
the privilege of hearing him, and have passed it by 
with insolent contempt. 

Great was the clapping of hands, and triumphant 
the congratulations with which, on my return home, 

I was received by Mrs. S and her daughters, 

who had seen me at church with dehghted sur- 
prise, not knowing of my intention to go ; for, in- 



188 REMINISCENCES OF 

deed, I knew it not myself, a quarter of an hour 
before I set off. Such a talking as we had about 
it I — such a decided determination avowed on my 
part, again and again, never to attend any other 
ministry than that of Mr. Simeon, from that time 
forth, — I should vainly attempt to record! The 
reader may suppose that I kept it from that month 
of May, till the following November, very faithfully, 
and on the whole, beneficially. But, with Novem- 
ber, a daily arrival of invitations, and an agitated 
acceptance of them, formed the foundation of a 
great part of the difficulty and disquietude of which 

I have already spoken. Mrs. S could not 

but know for what purpose a sedan chair was so 
often waiting in the passage about eight o'clock in 
the evening ; neither did I, for some time, seek to 
prevent her speaking of what she either knew or 
thought of it. But, ever as her monitions came 
thicker and sharper, and her most just remarks 
that we could not go two ways at once, or serve 
God and mammon, pierced my conscience with 
their truth, I became more and more unwilling to 
continue my intercourse with her. At length it 
nearly ceased, and I so arranged my goings out, as 
to avoid as much as possible, the chance of encoun- 
tering her in my transit. I thus contrived, till the 
approach of Christmas, to ward off any intervention 
on her part, on the subject of my almost constant 
engagements ; for, if I had no party to attend, I 
managed to make a neighbouring visit to a friend, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. J 89 

or had one to visit me. In short, I kept Mrs. 
S at hay, and did as I liked. 

But I was not at peace in this way of proceeding. 
Independently of religious considerations, I had 
been quite unaccustomed to such a round of gaiety, 
and felt an inward dissatisfaction with it, which, 
without any other cause, would have excited un- 
comfortable reflections. When therefore, this in- 
nate distaste to my own proceedings, was accompa- 
nied by a consciousness of inconsistency, and of 
halting between two opinions, which made me seem 

a deceiver to myself as well as to Mrs. S , 

I became really unhappy, and began very seriously 
to think of withdrawing myself from all W'Orldly 
society, as Mrs. S called my circle of asso- 
ciates ; a purpose which was strengthened by my 
very unexpectedly forming a new acquaintance, 
that had a still further effect in painfully, but I 
shall ever have cause to say, most profitably, affect- 
ing my mind. 

The circumstance of my attending the ministry 
of Mr. Simeon, was not likely in itself to escape his 
observation, though as yet I had never been intro- 
duced to him ; for the congregation of that good 
man was largely composed of a class of persons, 
who obsequiously sought to please him, by carrying 
to his ear such tittle tattle as his peculiar frailties 
rendered only too acceptable to him. I do not 
suppose that the accession of any disciple above the 
class of " Master Starn," could have remained a 



190 REMINISCENCES OF 

secret to him. A proselyte like myself therefore, 
brought over from the ranks of the Philistines, and 
of some notoriety as to name and literary position, 
was a kind of trophy to exhibit in the camp of the 
saints. All this would have so fallen out in the 
natural order of things; but when that natural 
order was assisted in its progress to maturity, by 
the stirring representations of my case, which were 

made, right and left, by Mrs. S , I became 

a mark for the exercise not only of such evangelical 
curiosity, but also of such kindly interest, as good 
people might be supposed to feel for a person whose 
enquiring state, and manifold dangers, were thus 
introduced to their notice. Mr. Simeon however, 
as yet stood aloof from me ; and it is of another 
party that I shall presently speak. I am quite sure 

that the different revelations which Mrs. S 

had made of my particular exercises of mind, (a 
knowledge of which I had imparted to her under 
no apprehension of their passing beyond her own 
circle) had, by no means, been intended by her to 
produce me any discomfort ; but were merely the 
ebullitions of her habit of talking ; a habit which, 
in her case, did not, as in mine, involve her in any 
personal details of her own. Like all proud people, 
she never suffered another to look into the recesses 
of her interior nature ; but Uke all such persons, at 
least like those of a lively, good natured tempera- 
ment, she delighted in being prominent as a com- 
forter and entertainer, and, above all things, as 



THOUGHT AND FEELING, 191 

being possessed of great influence in her particular 
sphere. It was thus, I am persuaded, and thus 
only, that she sought distinction for herself, by 
making me, and my difficulties, the theme of her 
conversation. Had she been a singer or a dancer, 
she would have been uneasy in company till she 
had shown her forces in either way ; but, being a 
religious professor, it was as a " nursing mother in 
Israel" that she exhibited her own power, and the 
way in which it affected me. 

I was not aware of her communications as it re- 
spected me, till I was waited upon one morning by 
a lady of very agreeable manners, and pleasing ap- 
pearance, who without using any other ceremony, 

than that of sending up her name as Mrs. K 

announced, as soon as she had seated herself, that 
she had paid me a visit in consequence of the very 
interesting account which she and Mr. K 
had heard of me from Mrs. S 

I was familiar with her name, and though this 
was the first time I had seen the lady, I was ac- 
quainted by sight with Mr. K , and had 

heard enough respecting the severity of his nature 

from Mrs. S , to entertain no great desire 

of making his acquaintance. Of his whereabouts 
as to position in society, I had heard, that, rather 
late in life, he had given up his commercial pursuits 
in London, and, some successful speculations having 
made him a rich man, had turned his thoughts to 
the church ; and, to prepare himself for ordination, 






192 REMINISCENCES O^E" 

had come up to the university as a married man. 

The manner of Mrs. K was so cordial an(|j 

engaging, that I could scarcely, without great dis- 
courtesy, have refused her invitation. 

I had not been half an hour in the company of ^ 

Mr. K on the evening of my visit, before 

I discovered that, although his manners were ex-.| 
tremely reserved, not to say forbidding, he was a^ 
person far more adapted to benefit me in a wise, 
consistent way, than Mrs. S . I believe I in- 
herit from my father, a rather unusual discern- 
ment of character ; and, from the magnetizing power 
of spirit, I am almost immediately so attracted, or 
repulsed by the nature of different individuals, that 
I seem to know, rather than to guess, what impres- 
sion I am making on them. I was certain that Mr. 

K detected, and contemned my vanity, and 

my impulsive habits of thought and action. He 
clearly perceived my want of subduing at every 
turn, and of being brought under the yoke of a 
higher law than I was yet acquainted with. Ifelt 
this — I did not suppose it. I distinctly experi- 
enced the presence of a restraining power, which, 
with the promptness and sureness of an instinct, 
warned me to be guarded, and " to keep my mouth 
as it were with a bridle." Nor was it only then, 

but always, that Mr. K , by the nature of his 

spirit, made me sensible when my own was not in 
unity with it; and when, by being too sharp, (I 
was never too flat) I caused in him a sensation of 
distaste and dishke. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 193 

With Mrs. S , on the contrary, I felt no 

repression, no interior check, but quite the reverse. 
We stood towards each other in the relation of tar- 
taric acid and soda ; and no sooner did we come in 
contact, than a most exhilarating effervescence was 
the result. Neither of us, and, when the girls 
were present, none of us, could talk fast enough, 
or feel secure of getting our turn to speak, unless 
we narrowly watched our opportunity. I knew 
that this was not wisdom, whatever it might boast 
of in the way of doctrine ; and when I came to the 
pause and quiet which my own apartment afforded 
me, I was sensible of somewhat upon my spirit, 
which exceedingly disrelished and disowned the 
tone of such communion. 

I might be said, therefore, in my first visit to 

Mr. K , to come under the only really wise 

and judicious influence that I had yet been intro- 
duced to, in the social intercourse of the religious 
world. It was never difficult for any body to pene- 
trate into my thoughts and feelings, let them be of 
what kind they might ; and, in a far wiser way 

than Mrs. S had done, Mr. K soon 

elicited from me a pretty accurate sketch of my 
internal condition. It was one, w^hich, having 
probed, he did not spare to treat somewhat se- 
verely, so far as it respected the unqualified con- 
tempt he cast upon my pursuits and position as a 
novelist, and the notice which such acquirements 
as I was supposed to possess, procured me. Not 
o 



194 REMINISCENCES OF 

that he expressed himself in any uncourteous lan- 
guage ; — far from it. It was by the very calmness 
of the terms he used, that he made the most suc- 
cessful assault upon my cherished idols. He broke 
them to pieces, indeed, but it was only to show me 
the danger and deceit that lurked unseen within 
them ; and, while I winced under the pain he occa- 
sioned me, I could sufficiently discern that the 
wound was needful. Blessed be God, who taught 
me from my earliest years to love truth ! I never 
met with it, — no, not even when it rebuked me, — 
nay more, when it cut me to pieces, in which I 
could not say — " how sweet are thy words unto my 
taste ! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth ! " 

About an hour before I came away, Mr. K 

took his place at the table, with the bible before 
him, and the bell being rung, the elder children, a 
boy and girl about twelve and fourteen (w^ho had 
been sent out of the way whilst we were talking) 
entered the room, together with three female ser- 
vants, and he then entered on the duty of family 
worship. It was the first time in my life that I had 
assisted in such an act ; for when, or where, it was 

performed in the family of JNIrs. S , I had 

never enquired. The general tone of her discourse 
did not seem to me so sufficiently to solemnize the 
mind, as to incline it for the holy act of supplica- 
tion. 

It was ' otherwise with that of Mr. K ; by 

whose chastened mode of expressing himself, as 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 195 

well as by the tenor of his sentiments, ray mind 
had been so well prepared for such an exercise, as 
to render it as desirable as it was beneficial. I 
could not be otherwise than affected by it ; but I 
felt myself in a land of peace, where vehemence, 
even of a good kind, was to be kept down by the 
dominion of meekness. Quiet therefore, were the 

tears I shed, as Mr. K , reverent, holy, and 

humble, poured forth his heart in prayer for his 
family, for himself, and for me, as a " dear friend 
exercised with temptation, and beset with danger." 
The spirit of wisdom w^hich manifestly actuated 
him, divested the personality of the allusion of all 
that could give pain, by reducing it to the simplest 
and fewest words, and such words as all that was 
within me could thankfully unite with. 

I had so short a distance to walk home, that, in 
accompanying me thither, he had little more to do 
than to put me out of one house into the other ; 
so that had he been inclined, there was no oppor- 
tunity for conversation. But he Was silent till we 
arrived at the door of my dwelling ; when bidding 
me good night, he only added the words, '' be 
faithful to your convictions." 

1 can remember the state of mind in which I 
hastened to my own room, and, after a short time 
given to musing upon the circumstances of the 
evening, I sat down to the perusal of " Cecil's Re- /^ 
mains,'' a book which he had put into my hands as 
likely to be useful to me, and which I soon per- 



196 REMINISCENCES OF 

ceived to contain much plain, practical good sense. 
Decided sectarianism, no doubt, spoke out in every 
page; but it was not the sectarianism of Mrs. 

S . It was something that I could understand 

and feel the power of: and it was free, also, from 
a certain phraseology which always, more or less, 
offended me in her conversation. 

But much as my book interested me, I could not 
then give it any lengthened attention. My thoughts 
continually reverted to the impression which Mr. 

K had left upon them. I reflected long and 

deeply upon the keen insight into the besetting 
sins and frailties of my nature, which his manner 
and words had displayed. I never seemed so en- 
tirely unveiled to myself, in respect to my vanity, 
my inflated notions of my own importance and su- 
periority, and the really worthless character of my 
most prized possessions, as at that moment. I 
contrasted the feelings which then engrossed me 
with those which I usually brought home from my 
visits. Did I,— or could I, on such occasions at- 
tempt to pray ? Could I venture, with a heart ex- 
cited and intoxicated with the notice I had received, 
and luxuriating in the remembrance of the impres- 
sion my reputed talents and accomplishments might 
have made, — could I, I asked myself, kneel down 
and ofl"er before my Maker, a soul so enslaved by 
the things of earth, and so intensely occupied with 
self idolatry ? — No — I could not — I never even at- 
tempted it ; — but filled with, and fully conformed to, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 197 

" the course of this world," I always, on these oc- 
casions, went prayerless to my bed, — except, (and 
happily, those occasions were not rare) when some 
wound upon my sensitive heart, sent me there so 
wretched, that I turned to God as my only Helper 
against myself. But this mode of seeking divine 
aid was too vehement, and often, too much alloyed 
by a mixture of bitter and vindictive passions, to 
admit of its affording me that sweet refreshment 
which is " as the light of the morning, when the 
sun riseth; — even a morning without clouds; — as 
the tender grass springing out of the earth, by 
clear shining after rain." 

Such, and so reviving to my soul, were the holy 
influences which the incidents of that evening shed 
over it. 




198 REMINISCENCES OF 





CHAPTER XIV. 

i Y intercourse with • Mr. K and 

his family continued, though not in 
any degree that could be called inti- 
mate. They seemed to be of that 
class of persons who live very much within them- 
selves, and to limit their society to that of a chosen 
few. Still, I was a sufficiently frequent guest, to 
have many opportunities of improving my ac- 
quaintance with them, and of thereby strengthen- 
ing those good impressions which it had been the 
means of making upon me. 

Mrs. S , highly delighted at having placed 

me under such able teachers, became much less 
solicitous to engage me in conversation; and the 
Christmas vacation having caused a cessation of 
gaiety till nearly the end of February, and I had 
also desired and determined, for a time at least, to 
withdraw from what was called worldly society (a 
term which included every body I had hitherto 
known) nothing occurred for some weeks to place 
me under any body's ban. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 199 

Old friends at length came back to college ; 
concerts began again, and invitations dropped, thick 
as hail, once more upon my table. 

There was nothing left but to make a fight of it, 
or run away, or do as I had ever done, and make 
one of the gayest of the gay, amongst those whom 

Mrs. S called and considered, '^ poor lost 

creatures.'' Now, albeit I could by no effort of will 
or imagination, consign these (many of them) my 
admired acquaintance, and some of them my oldest 
and most valued friends, to the lot ordained for 

them by Mrs. S ; yet I could clearly perceive 

that it was not worth while, for the sake of any 
pleasure their society afforded me, to peril the ad- 
vancement of the far deeper and more edifying 
gratification, which w^as to be derived from inter- 
course with persons less under the influence of 
worldliness of thought and pursuit. 

I possessed, by nature, a morbidness of mind 
which instinctively fed upon the worst and most 
melancholy side of things ; and this, no doubt, had 
much to do, in fostering a contempt for some of 
my past pleasures, w^hich, in many respects, ren- 
dered it not a difficult thing for me to forego them. 
Greatly was this tendency of mine increased by my 

intercourse with Mr. K , who possessed in a 

large measure, that severity of judgment which I 
have invariably found to be the accompaniment, * 
and the alloy, of great truthfulness of nature. I 
never knew a remarkably conscientious person, — 



200 REMINISCENCES OF 

one whose word was his bond, and with whom no 
trickery, no pretension, could find a moment's 
quarter, who was not in some degree, of an austere 
and harsh temperament ; neither have I ever known 
a gentle, loving, kindly person, — one whose habit 
of life it was to see nothing but the best side of 
things and people, whose amiabiUty was not checked 
by a tendency to deceit, and whose besetting sin 
was not that of hypocrisy. But whilst I make 
these remarks, I desire to be understood as being 
far from generalizing them into a principle, or as 
stating them in any other form, than as the mere 
results of my own particular experience. 

The invitations, as I have already stated, re- 
turned, and with them my disquietudes. I wished 
to abstain from company, but the sacrifice was 
great. The society I had to forego was brilliant ; 
— that to which I had to turn, was vapid and bi- 
goted. The best specimen of it was Mr. K 

himself; and it was impossible not to detect in him 
a narrowness of mind which overshadowed, and in 
a great measure nullified, the good which his better 
qualities were fitted to produce. 

Dissatisfied on all sides, I looked forward to the 
possibility of obtaining some settlement of mind, 
and comfort of heart, from the introduction to Mr. 
Simeon, which was likely to follow an invitation I 

* had received from his particular friend Mrs. D ; 

who, tapping me on the shoulder one Sunday as 
she was following me from church, made my ac- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 201 

quaintance in a moment, by asking me if I would 
come to her Jew meeting on the following evening. 
Much had I longed to meet Mr. Simeon, and great 
were the expectations I had formed of enjoying 
some conversation with him. I was altogether new 
to the mode of conducting these Jew meetings, or 
I should have foreseen that then, and there, could 
be neither the time nor place to hope for his at- 
tention. 

On the appointed evening I accompanied Mrs. 

S and two of her daughters to the house of 

Mrs. D ; where, on arriving, we wex'e shown 

into a room surrounded on three sides of it by 
chairs, and in the front of those that occupied the 
end of the apartment, were two or three benches, 
on which were seated in detached parties of three 
or four together, a great many ladies ; it being, ex- 
clusively a female assembly. In the middle of the 
room stood a large round table filled with toys, 
babies' shoes, hand-screens, and such like small 
ware, the contributions of different ladies towards a 
fancy bazaar which was to be held on some future 
day for the benefit of the Jews. As we were all 
supposed to have taken tea before we came, we had 
only to seat ourselves, and wait patiently the arrival 
of Mr. Simeon, and the lady of the house, who 
were taking theirs in the parlour below. 

I thought of the different scene at the Professor's 
concerts, and quailed a little as I contrasted it 
with the present aspect of affairs. Excellent, good 



202 REMINISCENCES OF 

people, beyond all question, and fit to be my mo- 
nitors and pattern in every respect, were tbe greater 
part of those that surrounded me ; but, — but, — I 
must confess, that I languished a little for the ele- | 
gance and accomplishment I had quitted ; as Mrs. " 

S sometimes phrased it, I '* hungered after 

the leeks and the cucumbers of Egypt.'* Things 
would be better, I thought, when Mr. Simeon ap- 
peared ; at all events, the stified observations given 
in the ghost of a whisper, the demure looks, the 
everything that was constrained and disagreeable, 
would be exchanged for the animated interest, 
which, if, in a drawing-room, he were like what he 
generally was in the pulpit, could not fail to follow 
any sort of demonstration he might be disposed to 
favour us with. 

At length the door opens, and Mrs. D , ac- 
companied by Mr. Simeon, makes her appearance, 
and the assembled ladies, to the number of some 
forty or so, begin to look a little more cheery and 
life-like. They could not well do otherwise, when 
Mr. Simeon, immediately upon his entrance, per- 
ceiving the display of fancy articles on the table, 
with almost literally, a hop, step, and jump, darted 
towards them, and gazing enraptured first on one, 
then on another, — smiling, nodding, — and seeming 
to me more as if he were performing the part of 
Grimaldi in a pantomime, than anything else — at 
length took up a pair of baby's shoes, held them 
before his eyeS; smiled at them, nodded at them, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 203 

laid them down, — then sighed profoundly, and then 
sat down wdth his hand before his face. 

I should vainly attempt to describe the wonder 
and distaste (I might use a stronger term) with 
which I gazed at all this tom-foolery. The meta- 
phorical expression of " you might have Tcnocked 
me down luith a feather^'' was scarcely figurative 
when applied to the painful revulsion of feeling I 
experienced. " Was this the man to whom for 
more than six months, I had listened with nearly 
as much reverence as I should have listened to St. 
Paul himself! " For, remarkable as it was, that so 
long an abstinence from anything preposterous 
should have been the case, in respect to a person so 
exceedingly open to the influence of sudden and 
ridiculous impulses, I do not recollect, until the 
present unhappy occasion, I had ever witnessed 
anything in his demeanour, or had heard any ob- 
servation from his lips, that I could have denomi- 
nated absurd or puerile. Very eccentric I often 
considered him ; — it w^ould have been strange in- 
deed, for anybody to have been an attendant upon 
his ministry for the space of half a year, and not to 
have arrived at that view of his character. But the 
earnestness of his devotion, — the fervour of his ap- 
peals, — the profound knowledge of human corrup- 
tion, of the danger of temptation, — of the difficulty 
of conflicting wdth it, — in a word, his aflSuence in 
all that constituted a living experience, and enabled 
a preacher to speak froni it to the heart and to the 



204 REMINISCENCES OF 

conscience of his hearers, — this it was, that had 
enshrined hira in my heart, as a shepherd who well 
understood how to lead his flock from pasture to 
pasture, and to feed them, not with dead words, but 
with the bread of life. 

I w^ould not have seen him under such circum- 
stances as this evening invested him with, for any 
consideration that could have been offered me. 

Mrs. S w^ho sat by my side, soon perceived the 

impression which this strange scene was producing 
upon my mind. I could not, indeed, long keep 
silent ; but several times during its exhibition, gave 
utterance to my disapprobation. I even proposed 
to go home. " I shall never be able to bear it," 
I said ; " I cannot endure to stay if we are to have 
much of this."— She besought me to be still and 
patient. *' It was only his way," she said; " he 
would soon have done with it;" — an assurance 
which was fulfilled, by his speedily proceeding to 
the business of the evening. 

What that was, I cannot undertake to say ; for 
I attended to none of it. I was wholly absorbed by 
my own disappointed feelings, and the dissatisfac- 
tion which they produced in my mind towards 
everybody and everything. " Vanity, vanity, all 
is vanity." I saw the wise man's sentence written 
upon everything ! I was vain, — my worldly friends 
were vain, — their society vain, — their talents 
vain, — nothing was real to ameliorate my nature, 
and to pacify the restlessness of my heart; yet 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 205 

vainer than all, because he had presented himself 
to me under the semblance of wisdom, was the 
teacher to whose influence I had looked for that 
help which would have strengthened me to make 
the sacrifice of all that had captivated my imagina- 
tion, and enslaved me to the world. 

Little was I now disposed for the introduction to 
Mr. Simeon which I had but a short time before so 
greatly desired. I instinctively drew back, when 

at the close of the evening, Mrs. D came to 

look for me amongst the company, for the purpose 
of making me known to him. Her rapid words 
and manner left me no choice in the question ; for 
she had taken my hand and led me up to him be- 
fore I had time to speak a w^ord in opposition. I 
suppose he saw a reluctance on my part to the pro- 
posed honour, which promised no accession in me 
to the number of his female admirers. 

" How is your brother, ma'am ? " was his first 
address, and one w^hich so clearly betokened his not 
knowing what to say to me, inasmuch as it was a 
painful subject, and must have been known for such 
by Mr. Simeon, my poor brother being a fellow of 
his college, that, added to the other unpleasant cir- 
cumstances of the evening, it so disturbed me, that 
I hastened off as fast as I could, glad to get home, 
and to find myself at liberty to relieve my mind of 
some of its emotions, by expressing them to Mrs. 

S and her daughters, with whom I returned in 

company. Our walk was not much occupied with 



206 REMINISCENCES OF 

conversation, for that is a word which implies reci- 
procity of remark ; of which, on this occasion, there 

was none. Poor Mrs. S , Uke " panting time, 

toiled after me in vain ; " for, my movements par- 
taking of the excitement of my spirit, I hurried 
forwards, " muttering my wayward fancies as I 
roved," till, as soon as I had thrown myself on a 

chair in Mrs. S *s room, I ended them with a 

resolution most audibly and definitively announced, 
that from that time forth, I would have nothing 
more to say to the religious world. Mr. Simeon 
had cured me of all desire for their further ac- 
quaintance. I would go back, I said, to my old 
friends and associates, whose religion, let it be of 
what kind it might, would have protected them 
from making so absurd an exhibition of themselves, 
as I had that night witnessed. 

As soon as an opportunity offered for her to edge 

in a word, Mrs. S took up the cause of Mr. 

Simeon, and the religious community in general. 
She spoke much, and well, of the singular tempera- 
ment of Mr. Simeon, and the little control that it 
received in consequence of the circumstances in 
which he was placed. She reminded me, with some 
personal allusions, of the difficulty which attended 
the career of those, who were too independent of 
their fellow creatures, to stand in any relation to 
them which required deference and submission. 

But I need not go into any detail of what passed 
on this occasion. It may suffice to say, that though 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 207 

silent, I was not convinced by any of her argu- 
ments ; to which I did not reply, because I was too 
much occupied by a throng of incipient purposes of 
escape from her, from Mr. Simeon, and from every- 
body else, to be paying much attention to what 
either she or her daughters had to say on the subject. 

I may curtail this part of my narrative by stating 
that the immediate consequence of the evening, was 
my free and unchecked return to all the gaieties 
from which I had made a temporary retreat ; and, 
as is usual in such cases, with a deeper plunge than 
ever. 

I have called my return to these pleasures a free 
and unrestrained one ; and, in so far as the giving 
of a license to my own will to please itself, could 
be called a free and unrestrained measure, it was 
so. But the truth and wisdom which I had listened 

to from Mr. K , and, in spite of all his failings, 

the ministry also of Mr. Simeon, had taken too 
deep a hold upon my conscience, to allow of my 
finding much satisfaction in resuming this course 
of life. I was too much awakened by the searching 
appeals that had been made to the best part of my 
nature, to slumber any more over the reflections 
with which they filled my mind. I was extremely 
unhappy ; and became at last so totally miserable, 
that I resolved to quit the place ; a resolution 
which, after I had allowed it time enough to be 

sufficiently matured, I communicated to Dr. I , 

an old friend of myself and my family, who had 



208 REMINISCENCES OF 

always looked upon my residence with Mrs. S- 



and my connexion with " the saints," as her party 
was termed, with extreme aversion and regret. 
From the very commencement of it, he had pre- 
dicted what would be the consequences ; and had 
pronounced me lost, — and his own delight in Han- 
del's Overtures, and Corelli's concertos, lost,— and 
everything that was pleasant and agreeable, and 
worth keeping in me, lost, — as soon as he heard 
that I was an attendant at Mr. Simeon's church. 
Great therefore, was his joy, when I spoke of my 
intention to depart ; and prompt were his offers of 
aiding it to the best of his ability. It was not only 
desirable to go, he said, but to go as far as possible 
from my present quarters ; and as he happened to 
have some relatives who were domiciled in Paris, 
and there mixing in the first rank of society, he 
strongly recommended me to ^x upon that place as 
my residence for the next year; engaging at the 
same time to secure for me such attentions on the 
part of his friends, as could not fail to render my 
sejour there extremely agreeable. 

Having obtained my consent to his proposal, he 
began to negotiate with his friends on my behalf; 
whilst they, on their part, responded in the most 
cordial manner to his application. Every needful 
preparatory step was taken ; the family fixed upon, 
with whom I was to board and lodge, terms named, 
and acceded to, and nothing remained but to finish 
the treaty by my fixing the day of my intended ar- 
rival in Paris. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 209 

Under the reasonable apprehension of bringing 
Mrs. S upon me, and not only her^ but every- 
body else whom she could enlist on her side, and 
draw up in battle array against me, I had been pro- 
foundly silent respecting my intentions ; but when 
the week previous to my proposed departure arrived, 
and the necessity of making some arrangement 
respecting my lodgings during my absence, pre- 
sented itself to my consideration, I found it impos- 
sible any longer to protract a disclosure of my plans. 
She was greatly surprised, and somewhat shocked 
to hear of the place I had chosen to sojourn in. 
England was bad enough, she thought ; but France 
was likely to be much worse. She did not, how- 
ever, as I expected she would, make use of any ar- 
guments to turn me from my purpose. " Go where 
I would," she said, " I could never get away from 
the Lord." She then quoted a text from Hosea, 
which was so favourite a one with her in applica- 
tion to me and my doings, that I scarcely ever re- 
collect to have talked with her about my perplexi- 
ties or projects, in which it was not forthcoming. 
" She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall 
not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but 
shall not find them.'^ 

" That's your case, now, my dear lady,^^ she 
would say ; " and will be till you are thoroughly 
broken down, and find your way hedged up with 
thorns, so that you can nowhere discover a path. 
" Then shall she say," (and oh, the glowing rap- 
p 



210 REMINISCENCES OF 

ture that lighted up her countenance, I can see it 
now !) " I will go and return to my first husband, 
for then was it better with me than now." 

Having thus discussed the matter, and thankful 
to find myself so easily let out of it, I begged of 
her and of her daughters, not to speak of my in- 
tentions to any one beyond themselves ; for, having 
fully decided upon my plan, I told them that I 
wished to secure it from being interrupted by the 
zeal of any of my religious friends ; more particu- 
larly, I said, I wished it to be kept from the know- 
ledge of Mr. K , whose opinion of it, I could 

not but be certain, would be very unfavourable. 

They promised strict attention to my request, 
and all went on as I could wish, till the ensuing 
Sunday. The time of my departure was then so 
near at hand that I scarcely cared whether or not 
my purpose was known ; since it seemed improbable 
that any opposition of opinion could succeed in al- 
tering what was so definitively arranged in its mi- 
nutest details. On that evening I went for the last 
time, as I supposed, to Trinity church ; for, greatly 
as Mr. Simeon had fallen in my estimation on the 
score of wisdom in his private demeanour, I still 
too much respected his public ministrations to fore- 
go my attendance upon them. 

Never had I listened to a more powerful and 
heart-searching discourse than the one which he, 
on that evening, delivered. If he had been ac- 
quainted with my particular circumstances at the 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 211 

moment, he could not more forcibly have adapted 
it to my case. It was on the sacrifice of Abra- 
ham : — " Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing 
that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son 
from me." He spoke of the benefit and privilege 
of having some cherished Isaac to give up to God. 
He dwelt upon the blessedness that accompanied 
the surrender of these idols of the heart, and the 
hundred fold that was recompensed back into the 
bosom of the sacrificer. He enlarged upon the ne- 
cessity there was for our being crippled and be- 
reaved on that side of our being which was so prone 
to nestle down upon its comforts. It was in vain 
to hope to escape it, he said, or to look for exemp- 
tion from trial. Go where we would, and give our- 
selves to what we iliight, if we belonged to God, or 
earnestly desired to do so, his hand would find us 
out, and his voice would command us to slay the 
object, though dear to us as a right hand, or a right 
eye, that stood between our souls and him. 

It was as if the voice of God himself was speak- 
ing to me through his creature, and pleading with 
me not to turn my back on such opportunities of 
good as were then before me ; but to remain in my 
lot, even that lot to which his providence had so 
mysteriously indeed, but still so manifestly guided 
me. I almost wished that it were possible to aban- 
don my whole project ; and, bearing with the infir- 
mities of this faithful man, under the consideration 
(a consideration of which Mrs. S had never 



212 REMINISCENCES OF 

ceased to remind me) that " we had this treasure 
but in earthen vessels," and also under the remem- 
brance of my own great and manifold failures, to 
look only on the blessings that his ministry was the 
means of diffusing, and to accept of that. 

I was only arrested in my purpose of renouncing 
the whole affair, by a remembrance of the inconsis- 
tency which must necessarily accompany such an 
act, and the certain offence it would give to Dr. 
I^ . " Oh no, no," I said to myself, " it is im- 
possible. I must follow it out, and cast myself 
upon the mercy of God to forgive me, if I am about 
to do wrong." 

In a very low and desponding state of mind, I 
bent my way up the aisle when the sermon was 
over. Little did I think, and less did I care, whe- 
ther or not, my purposes were now^ made known 
to any one. I saw^ indeed, that they must be pur- 
sued to their conclusion, but the heat and eagerness 
with which I had hitherto engaged in them, and the 
hope with which they had inspired me, were gone. 
I should hardly have cared at that moment, if Mr. 

K himself had been cognizant of that which I 

was about to do. Except in a casual way at church, 
I had not seen him or his wife for some weeks ; 
for, added to my own desire to keep aloof, he was 
at this time so much taken up in reading for his 
degree, as to leave him no leisure to give me an 
evening of his society. 

I had reached the little door in the chancel, when 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 213 

I perceived him and Mrs. K standing near it, 

apparently waiting till I came up to them. 

" We have not seen you for a long time," said 
he ; " we are going the same way," and he offered 
me his disengaged arm. " The sermon to night," 
he continued, '* seemed to have been made for you." 
I expressed something of the same opinion ; and he 
went on with a few observations which required no 
particular reply on my side. I hoped to have 
avoided going in with them, as, besides that I wished 
to be at home, and alone, I found, when it came to 
the point, that I still shrunk from encountering his 
censure, or, more probably, his contempt, for the 
cowardice and vacillation which my proposed mea- 
sures would appear to him to indicate. He had 
supposed me, during the interval that had passed 
since we met, to be steadily pursuing a retired, 
quiet course of life ; and to be occupying myself in 
such pursuits as were calculated to confirm my 
evangelical views, and establish me in the sphere of 
duty to which they pointed. I did not well know 
how to endure the consequences, which I felt cer- 
tain would ensue from his finding himself unde- 
ceived in this respect ; and to protract, or at all 
events, to avoid the unpleasant office of being my 
own tale-bearer, I declined the invitation, which, 
as soon as we reached his door, he gave me to walk 
in with them. 

Doubtless he had discovered in my abstracted 
and melancholy manner, the presence of some un- 



214 REMINISCENCES OF 

usual source of disquietude ; for, in a tone of gentle 
kindness, not very usual with him, he said, " Do 
walk in with us. I have now so little time to de- 
vote to any of my friends, that I am glad to avail 

myself of any I can spare." Mrs. K , on her 

part, seconded his request so earnestly, that I felt 
I must comply with it. 1 felt also, that my heart 
must be laid open before them ; for, to have sat 
with them in the communion of friendship, with- 
holding from their knowledge a condition of thought 
and intention, that was, in all likelihood, to in- 
fluence the whole remaining course of my destiny, 
as far, at least, as they could have any interest in 
it, would have required a capacity for concealment, 
not to say deceit, of which I am thankful to say, I 
was never the possessor. I can conceal nothing. 
It would have been well for me, on many occasions 
of my life, if I could ; for '' he that can rule his 
tongue shall live without strife, and he that hateth 
babbling shall have less evil ;" * — but I was unhap- 
pily ill reared in the discipline of the tongue ; and 
have fallen into much sorrow and confusion, more 
times than I could number, on that account. 

I could not but think of what would probably be 
the course and the conclusion of my Sabbaths in 
France, and compare it with the quiet, orderly, 
and truly edifying way in which they were closed 
at Mr. K 's. " Shall I see anything like this, 

* Ecclesiasticus xix. 6, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 215 

where I am going?" I asked myself, when, in the 
midst of his family assembled for worship, the head 
of the house officiated with a truth and solemnity 
which left a savour of holiness upon the feelings, 
that, of itself, refreshed the soul, and drew it nearer 
to the source of all good. The answer to the query 
was prompt and painful ; too painful to be borne ; 
and I turned away from the ideas it suggested, as 
I would from the point of a sword. 

It was the custom there, as in many religious 
families, to have a regular supper on Sunday even- 
ings ; so that the presence of the servant while it 
was going on, enabled me to protract the. introduc- 
tion of the subject it was necessary for me to men- 
tion. As soon as it was over, and no one left but 

Mr. and Mrs. K , and a very pleasing young 

woman who was governess to their children, and 
admitted to confidential intimacy as a friend, I re- 
plied to Mr. K 's inquiry as to how I had been 

getting on of late, " Not very well. In fact, I am 
so exercised by a variety of conflicting thoughts 
and feelings, that I have made up my mind to go 
away for a time, and see what a change of resi- 
dence will do for me." 

" That was a purpose," he said, " to which he 
saw no objection ; only, — only' and he repeated the 
word with emphatic seriousness, " remember that 
all the good you are to derive from it, depends 
upon the circumstances which attend it." He then 
asked where I proposed to go. 



216 REMINISCENCES OF 

" I dare say you will think it strange," I replied, 
" but by the advice and assistance of an intimate 
friend, I have been led to decide upon taking up 
my abode, for a time, in Paris." 

" In Paris ! " he repeated, as did also Mrs. K — ■ — 
and Miss E , in a tone of voice which suffi- 
ciently evinced the extreme surprise which such an 

announcement occasioned. Perceiving Mr. K 

to remain silent, and painfully embarrassed by the 
condemnation, which, far more than any words he 
could have made use of, such a silence manifested, 

— '' I can see you think me wrong, Mr. K ," I 

said ; " but you must pray for me.^^ 

" In what words?" he asked. " Shall I venture 
to implore protection and safety for a friend who 
voluntarily, and with her eyes open, throws herself 
into a furnace ? " 

I may spare to dwell upon what further passed. 
It was far more " in sorrow than in anger" that he 
discoursed about the case ; and by the calm, sen- 
sible representations he made of its almost certain 
consequences, so effectually worked upon my mind, 
that, on leaving me at my door, I told him I should, 
in all probability, abandon my intentions. 

The anguish of my heart,— the desolation of my 
condition, — the total isolation from all human aid 
(for what can human aid extend of help to the con- 
science?) — the crowd of emotions that thronged 
every corner of my soul, — seemed to me, at that 
moment, more than I could bear. To stand alone 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 217 

with such a nature, opposed to so vehement, so 
wayward, so undisciplined a will as mine, — safe no- 
where — now taken up by this purpose, now bereft 
of it I knew not how, but bereft of it I was ; — not 
driven, and yet so influenced by the power of other 
people, that I must seem to many, and those the 
oldest and most valued of my friends, as a mere 
puppet, a thing of whim and inconsistency,— to 
contemplate all this, at the hour of midnight on a 
Sabbath, was overpoweringly solemn ; but it was 
good ; since, feeling my helplessness, and that I 
was pressed on all sides by the force of circum- 
stances, which constrained me to make a choice, and 
to range myself on the part of God or of the world, 
I made my election. I would give up all. I would 
renounce, henceforth, all worldly society. I would 
abandon the project of going to France, and take 
my lot with the religious world. 

It v/as a night much to be remembered in my 
mind's history ; and stands out prominently distinct, 
as marking one of its most important turning points. 

The following morning was devoted to undoing 
all that Dr. I- and his friends, at my own de- 
sire, had done for me, in respect to my abode in 
France. There are few tokens of dissatisfaction 
which are so penetrating and painful, as those which 
indicate contempt ; more particularly are they armed 
with power to probe to the quick, when in meeting 
with them, we cannot but be conscious of deserving 
the sort of rebuke they convey. 



218 REMINISCENCES OF 

The sarcastic smile of the Doctor, — his " Ay, ay, 
— very fine ! " and the like short comments, I took 
as humbly as I could ; but he was not of a nature 
to be very easily pacified, or inclined to think it a 
trifling matter that I should change my mind upon 
a point which it had caused him so much trouble to 
bring to bear ; especially when the persons who in- 
stigated me to the alteration, were of a party so 
exceedingly disliked by him. I believe he never 
entirely forgave me ; assuredly from that time I saw 
much less of him. But the loss of friends, and the 
scattering of old connections, '' like chaff upon the 
summer threshing floor," I had observed to be con- 
sidered amongst my new allies, as a natural, per- 
haps an unavoidable consequence of what they called 
conversion. A costly price have I paid in this 
way ! — the7i, unconsciously ; — 7iow, I see and mourn 
the reckless, lavish loss I entailed upon a lot too 
lonely in itself, — yet made still more so by this fa- 
natical surrender of much that innocently pleased, 
— and more that kindly and faithfully sought to 
cheer and ameliorate it. 

Having bestowed one day upon the requisite task 
of undoing, I bethought myself on the next, as to 
what was to succeed in the way of doing. For, 
although I was not to go to France, it did not fol- 
low but I might beneficially go somewhere else. 
I had no desire for society of any kind, that was in 
the least degree likely to endanger the resolution I 
had taken to withdraw from the world, (so called 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 219 

in religious parlance) but I should have been glad, 
if such a thing were practicable, to cast in ray lot 
with a more attractive and rational part of the re- 
ligious portion of it, than it had yet been my good 
fortune to fall in with. Added to this, the diffi- 
culty of breaking off my accustomed habits of visit- 
ing, was so much increased in my present position, 
that as a measure of self defence it seemed advis- 
able to seek another place of abode. I had a great 
fancy to get an introduction to Hannah More ; and 
as not very far from her locality, and being more- 
over a place I wished to know, I turned my mind 
towards Bath as the point to which I would for the 
present bend my way. 

I had, in some way or another, heard that Mr. 
Simeon was intimately acquainted with Mrs. More; 
and by way of ascertaining how far he might be 
disposed to aid my wish of making her acquaint- 
ance, I thought I would call upon Mrs.D , the 

prime minister in his dominions. I had no other 

knowledge of Mrs. D , than what arose from 

her inviting me to her Jews' meeting, and my ac- 
cepting the invitation, in the manner I have stated. 
But I was quite sure from the little of her charac- 
ter which those circumstances revealed to me, as 
well as from the general report of it which I had 
heard, that I could not do her a more acceptable 
service than that of asking her aid in helping on a 

work of conversion. She, like Mrs. S , was a 

" mother in Israel ;" but in a higher department of 



220 REMINISCENCES OF 

the spiritual nursery grounds ; and a very warm- 
hearted, kindly-disposed parent she proved herself, 
to a great many of the nurslings who came under 
her fostering care. Of these, I was not going to 
make myself one ; I had no taste or turn for that 
sort of protection ; seeing that it involved in it, as 
far, at least, as my observation went, the exercise 
of a degree of servility, and sometimes I fear, even 
of hypocrisy on the part of the protected, which I 
would have disdained to be suspected of. I went 
to her with a direct and simple purpose of asking 
if she could tell me whether Mr. Simeon was asso- 
ciated with Mrs. More in that kind and degree of 
intimacy, which permitted his introducing a lady to 
her notice ; and if so, whether he would be disposed 
to favour me with such an introduction. 

But, oh dear me ! as if it was at all likely that 
I could carry out a plain purpose in a plain way, 
after having set so electric a lady to work upon it ! 

" Mrs. More, my dear ! Mr. Simeon know Mrs. 
More ! to be sure he does ! " And then she was 
off, here, there, everywhere but at the point to 
which I wished to keep her. I scarcely knev/ how 
to introduce my subject in the presence of so much 
volcanic excitement ; and at last brought it out in 
so confused and mutilated a form, that I believe she 
could make out little or nothing, except that I was 
not very comfortable in my mind, and wished to 
consult Mr. Simeon in his professional capacity as 
a physician of souls ; than which, few things could 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 221 

have been further removed from my thoughts. I 
knew nothing then, of those spiritual views of reli- 
gion which turn the human being inward, and only 
inward, to the oracle within the breast, for the help 
and counsel he wants ; but I had an intuitive sense 
that the more distressed the spirit is, the less is it 
disposed to enter upon that sort of sentimental con- 
fidence which young ladies call, " opening their 
minds to their dear minister." 

I w^as in the midst of a very misty exposition of 
my case, when the door opened, and Mr. Simeon 
himself made his appearance. 

" Now, my dear, tell Mr. Simeon what you have 

been saying to me," said Mrs. D . " Dear 

creature ! she is under great exercise of spirit " — 
and sure enough, what with the puzzle I had made 
of it, and the other sources of trouble which op- 
pressed me, I was quite overcome, and could 
scarcely refrain from tears ; but they were tears of 
vexation, and not of romance ; tears by no means 
of a scenic description, and such as I would have 
been glad to have repressed, almost at the hazard 
of suffocation. Kind, beyond all words to describe, 

were both Mr. Simeon and Mrs. D at the 

sight of my emotion ; for, finding it in vain to at- 
tempt any calm and coherent statement of my case, 
I said, '• I had not been very well of late, and my 
situation was in many respects, trying." Strange 
is it, that we sometimes become, by the utterance 
of certain words, so much the object of pity to our> 



222 REMINISCENCES OF 

selves, that we break down under the mere attempt 
to speak them ! " My situation was trying/' In- 
deed it was ; but I think the greatest trial of it at 
that moment, was the burst of tears which I could 
not any longer suppress as I alluded to it. Mrs. 

D was about to seek for some lavender drops, 

but I was myself again in a moment. I assured 
her I was quite well. She then began to recount 
to Mr. Simeon, I cannot tell what; for he speedily 
checked her further detail by saying, as he waved 
his hand to her, — 

" Let me address myself to the case, ma'am ;" a 
command to which she signified her obedience by 
quitting the room. What it could possibly have to 
do with the matter I cannot tell, except that having 
heard I was a literary lady, he might think I should 
^relish a classical quotation ; but his first words to 
me after Mrs. D departed were, — 

" Do you understand Latin ? " 

" No, sir." 

" If you did, I would remind you of an observa- 
tion of Horace ;" which he repeated in English. I 
forget now what it was. With the exception of a 
manner peculiar to himself, of tapping the finger of 
one hand upon the palm of the other, there was no- 
thing of the grimace which had so much ofi'ended 
me on the evening I first was in his company. 

He was wise, judicious, and helpful, in his obser- 
vations ; and I felt encouraged to tell him, far more 
unreservedly than I could have supposed it possible 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 223 

I should have done, the difficulties that embarrassed 
and distressed me. With respect to Hannah More, 
she was what he called " a lovely creature ;" speak- 
ing, of course, in regard to the beauty of the mind; 
but at the distance I should be placed from her at 
Bath, she could not, he thought, be much to me ; 
added to which, she had overwhelming demands 
upon her time ; and he did not imagine there was 
anything very satisfactory to be hoped for me in 
that quarter. It was a noble thing, he said, to rise 
to the occasion, and to trust God, and abide in our 
lot. Whenever there was the slightest opposition 
in the way, it was safest not to move. When the 
cloud rested on the tabernacle, the IsraeHtes w^ere 
forbidden to journey. The cloud seemed at present 
on my tabernacle, and he believed I should do well 
to stand still awhile in my present place of abode. 

While we were talking, Mrs. K was an- 
nounced. She had been to my lodgings to ask me 
to dine with them the following day ; " and we were 
just going to send a note to ask the favour of your 
company, sir, to meet our friend here," she said, 
addressing Mr. Simeon. 

The dear, warm-hearted man ! how readily he 
assented to her request, and how ashamed I felt of 
my savage criticisms upon him, on the occasion of 
the Jew meeting ! To be sure, I saw some of the 
same antics displayed again ; but they seemed part 
and parcel of the man ; and really, now that they 
were manifestly the ebullitions of overflowing de- 



224 REMINISCENCES OF 

light in doing good, and of kindliness of heart, they 
were not disagreeable. 

" Will I come ? " he said, as Mrs. K asked 

the question, — " Will I not? Yes, — yes, — yes, — 
yes,^' clapping his hands together at the repetition 
of every word. We waited only for the presence 

of Mrs. D , who soon made her appearance, to 

render us a very happy party. The earnest inter- 
est which my case had excited in the good K 's, 

and which, even in the midst of preparing for his 

degree, had induced Mr. K to lose the greater 

part of a day in giving me a dinner, and inviting 
Mr. Simeon to meet me, for the sole purpose (as 
was avowed) of seeing what could be done for my 
good, — was really quite affecting to me ; and made 
me feel so grateful and humbled, that I returned 
home with my mind considerably relieved, and felt 
better disposed than I had ever yet been, to stand 
it out bravely in my appointed place. 




THOUGHT AND FEELING. 225 





CHAPTER XV. 

MAY pass over the next four or five 
years of my life, as producing nothing 
in the shape of event that had much 
influence upon my mental career. 
The only change that had occurred in my exter- 
nal circumstances, was my removal from the house 

of Mrs. S into a small one of my own, where 

one of her daughters resided with me as a compa- 
nion. I did not take A — S with the intention 

of retaining her with me in that capacity ; but had, 
in the first instance, simply asked her to make me 
a visit while she was out of employment ; she not 
being one of the sisters who were engaged in the 
school. She had occupied a situation as teacher in 
a seminary near London, which she was obliged to 
give up on account of delicate health. I found her 
so useful, and, from her ardent attachment to me, 
so devoted to the promotion of my domestic com- 
fort, that it would have been a great sacrifice in- 
deed, to have parted from her, after she had once 
been my inmate. As it turned out, there was no 



226 REMINISCENCES OF 

necessity for my doing so ; for she obtained em- 
ployment as a daily governess in a family resident 
in the town ; an occupation which, whilst it only- 
engrossed her mornings, left her half the day to 
spend with me ; an arrangement which suited me 
as well as it did her ; for I should have felt encum- 
bered, rather than helped by her society, or that of 
any one else, till the latter part of the day. Under 
this disposition of affairs we made it out pretty well. 
She was, as I have said, of great use in promoting 
my comforts, which consisted much, (too much, in- 
deed,) in those personal indulgences of ease, and 
exemption from the small troubles of housekeeping, 
which I was disposed to allow myself somewhat 
sooner than the privilege of age would have ren- 
dered it reasonable to claim them. 

It may be enquired what was going on during 
this interval of time, in respect to ray literary pur- 
suits. 

I still wrote ; but it was on religious subjects. — 
I had tried what I could do in the way of a theolo- 
gical novel, supposing that the dryness of the theme 
might be overcome by the attraction of the story ; 
and, being really in earnest to impress my readers 
with what I considered as truth, I had great delight 
in interweaving my notions and ideas of it in the 
form of a fictitious narrative. But this was an 
error in judgment. Religion should be discussed 
upon its own merits, and on its own ground of 
truth and soberness. It should be produced for 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 227 

what it is, and nothing else. Moreover, the sort 
of persons who most require instruction on this 
head, and whom we especially wish, and hope to 
benefit, by stealing upon their notice in disguise, 
and in that way inveigling them into listening to a 
homily, are just the people to be so angry and dis- 
gusted by being thus entrapped and disappointed, 
as to be made rather worse than better, by the ex- 
periment. 

George the Fourth's very popular Queen Caro- 
line, is said to have observed, in her broken Eng- 
lish, when somebody oflPered her a religious novel, 
and which she declined to peruse, — "If I have 
no-velle, let me have no-velle ; and if I have ser- 
mone, let me have ser-mone, but don't let me have 
both at once ;" and there was great justice, as well 
as shrewdness in the remark. 

The ill success of my evangelical story book, 
decided me, thenceforth, to forego fictitious writing 
altogether ; and for about three years previous to 
the period of which I am now speaking, I employed 
my pen upon professedly serious subjects. I wrote 
a little volume called " Religious Thoughts ; " part 
of the manuscript of which, I read to Mr. Simeon 

at the house of Mrs. D . He was pleased with 

it ; and pleased also, with my attention in submit- 
ting it to his notice ; but still a literary lady was 
not the modification of female discipleship, that 
he best approved of, or that could be made alto- 
gether to assimilate with his will and wishes. He 



•228 REMINISCENCES OF 

was very kind to me, and invited me sometimes to 
make one at his dinner parties ; but there was a 
screw loose somewhere, that prevented my being 
ranked amongst his favourites. The real obstacle 
to his satisfaction with me, arose chiefly from the 
narrowness of his disposition. He was too despotic, 
and too deficient in that generous turn of mind^ 
which could delight and expatiate in a free inter- 
change of thought and opinion, to bear even a 
" brother near the throne ; " still less could he en^ 
dure that a woman, and a hearer of his, should 
legislate for herself in the kingdom of thought, and 
be able, (or suppose herself to be) to pursue her 
appointed path, without every now and then coming 
to him to tell her the way. 

We were too little thrown into contact with one 
another, for me to offend him by any obtrusion of 
my sentiments upon his immediate notice, neither 
had I any inclination to reveal them, after I dis- 
covered his latent distaste to me. It was only upon 
what might be called " state occasions " that I was 
asked to join his parties. The little coteries where 
experience was detailed, — the sanctum sanctorum 
that was open to the elite, were favoured spots, to 
which I was far from docile enough to obtain the 
entree. 

So much, in explanation of the position in which 

I stood towards Mr. Simeon. Mr. K had long 

since taken his degree, and quitted the place. 

With respect to my old friends and acquaintance, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 229 

the ungodly portion of the community, I kept in 
with such of them, as were kind enough to choose 
to keep in with me ; and who took me as they 
found me, when they made an occasional morning 
call at my house. Full of harangues, and decla- 
mations, that commonly was; for, as my studies 
were now, and had been for a long time past, on 
the doctrinal points of religion, I was a powerful 
talker thereupon ; and I must do myself the justice 
to say I was a believer also, in so far as the loading 
of the head with knowledge, is likely to generate 
faith. Most certainly, I laboured with all my heart 
to repose in, and to extract comfort from, that 
which was set before me as the proper object of 
faith and confidence. This was the Scriptures ; or, 
as I always heard it called, " the word of God" as 
it stands in the letter, and in the book. That this 
literal, outward knowledge, was insufficient for the 
high and holy work of renewing my heart, and 
linking my soul to its Creator, in sure and certain 
acquaintance with his nature of love, and beauty, 
and forgiveness, I had not yet discovered. There 
was a needful process of crushing and breaking to 
pieces, and of being made bankrupt in joy to the 
last fragment I possessed, which I had not yet 
passed through — but which I must undergo — that 
I might be at length driven like a frightened bird, 
into the bosom of my beloved. I was happy 
enough, for some few years, in my little dwelling, 
with loving, kind, devoted A for my faithful 



230 REMINISCENCES OF 

friend and companion ; for the affectionate creature 
30 laid herself out to serve me, that if the surrender 
of her very life had been asked to do me a service, 
I believe it would have gone hard with her to refuse 
it. I wondered sometimes, when I contemplated 
what she was to me, and how my every wish was 
anticipated by her watchful care, I wondered, I say, 
how it could be ! " Where was retributive jus- 
tice ? " I asked myself ; and, with a latent dread 
that such a blessing must be taken from me to 
fulfil the unswerving justice of God's dealings, I 
sometimes added, as I thought of what I was to 
my poor father, — " it can never last, for I do not 
deserve it ; sooner or later, she must be taken from 
me. 

For a long time, however, she was given to me ; 
for all the time, indeed, that her love and care were 
needful ; and a sharp and most unexpected stroke 
of sorrow, rendered both essential to me. That 
these did not follow in the general wreck, — that 
the patience and constancy of the poor girl did not 
quite succumb beneath the trial which my always 
impetuous temper occasioned her, and which, ex- 
asperated by the pressure of feelings excoriated and 
bleeding at every pore, was now fearful to myself 
and all connected with me; — that this did not 
happen, is only to be attributed to the compassion 
and loving-kindness of the Lord, who would not 
lay upon his afflicted creature more than she could 
bear ; but who, in the midst of all her sorrows, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING, 231 

granted her the solace (and oh how great a one !) 
of a loving friend and companion. 
I could not indeed say 

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss, 
Has made my cup run o'er ; 

but in respect to all else that remained to me, I 
could use the language of the poet, and bless the 
Hand that in 

A kind and faithful friend, 
Had doubled all my store, 

I pass over the interval of a year of unmitigated, 
helpless, hopeless woe ; at the end of which pe- 
riod, my health which was all the time greatly im- 
paired, quite gave way ; and a severe hemorrhage 
from the throat, returning at very short intervals, 
completely laid me prostrate. Never shall I forget 
the emotion of horror I experienced, the first time 
it occurred. I knew that raising blood was in itself 
a dangerous symptom, and in the excess in which 
it occurred in my case, it seemed to me that it must 
be fatal; as it no doubt would have been, had it 
proceeded from the lungs ; but this, my old friend 

Dr. I who was a physician, always insisted 

upon it, was not the case. It was otherwise sup- 
posed by my medical attendant ; and on my ear- 
nestly asking him to tell me truly if he thought I 
should recover, he said he feared not. 

I should vainly attempt to describe the dismay, 
the desolation of heart, with which I heard this 



232 REMINISCENCES OF 

sentence pronounced. The whole world, and every 
thing in it, seemed black and blank ; and I myself 
still more so. To die ! to cease to be I as applied 
to myself, was something which I could not com- 
prehend. The line in " Young's Night Thoughts," 

*' All men think all men mortal but themselves." 

came to my remembrance with a power and light 
of truth upon it, that was quite new. I had, in a 
course of district visiting, and such like employ- 
ments, been an attendant upon many a sick and 
dying bed ; and from the despondency of my mind 
under its last heavy trial, had often supposed that 
I should be glad to die. But I found now, that I 
knew nothing of the state of mind which belongs to 
the actual approach of death. It is not till that 
great exigency draws near to us, and the force of 
circumstances compels us to look it in the face, — it 
is not till then, that we distinctly perceive, and fully 
believe, that it is our lot to die as well as others. 
I did not certainly believe this ; but wh^n I did, 
the revolution it produced in my whole nature, was 
most strange and remarkable. One of its strongest 
characteristics, was the absorption of every fear, 
every hope, every purpose, into the single thought, 
/ must die. 

So intense and overwhelming was this contem- 
plation, that at times, it seemed as if it would almost 
overpower my reason ; and I could well perceive 
the possibility of its so influencing any mind not 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 233 

under the restraints of religion, as to cause it to 
rush even into the very arms of the object it dreaded. 
According to the French proverb which says, 
" comme Grignan^ qui se jette dans Veau, pour 
peur de la pluie^^ I beHeve that many have been 
driven upon suicide from the very fear of death. I 
bless God, that no such terrible thoughts at that 
time visited my mind ; though I w^as oppressed 
with a burden almost too heavy to be borne, and 
which I scarcely could have endured, but that the 
external circumstances which surrounded me, were 
unusually favourable to the attainment of a state of 
mind to which, for some time previous to my being 
w^holly laid aside, my attention had been singularly 
and powerfully directed ; and in speaking of which, 
I must turn back a little way in my narrative. 

The prodigious excitement that was caused rather 
more than twenty years ago, respecting the gift of 
tongues, must be well remembered by many per- 
sons. The particular and overwhelming sorrow 
under which I at that time laboured, and to which 
I have just alluded, had been ray portion, for about 
a year, when I first heard of the revival of this mi- 
racle in the church, and of its appearance amongst 
a little knot of believers at Port Glasgow in Scot- 
land. It seemed to me, as it did to everybody else 
whom I heard mention it, a mere dream of fanati- 
cism, and for some time I paid no sort of attention 
to it ; but the unceasing disquietude of my spirit, 
receiving but little aid from those external views of 



234 REiMINISCENCES OF 

religion which I had imbibed, I began to inquire if 
anything in this direction had a gleam of comfort 
in it. I was yearning for something that came 
closer to the wound, and applied to it some more 
successful balm of healing, than I could find in 
expositions of doctrine. I wanted a living mo- 
nitor, an ever present rebuker, to still the irritated 
feelings, which, in their present condition of per- 
petual pain, the slightest word of opposition would 
rouse to degrading exhibitions of ungoverned wrath, 
that added to my other sorrows the anguish of a 
wounded conscience. Well, — too well, did I know 
the nature and the power of my soul's disease ; 
and again and again I asked, " Is there no balm in 
Gilead ; is there no physician there ? " 

I do not say that there was not much that was 
good and true in the religious views of those whose 
ministry I attended; — it was impossible that it 
should be without great value, imparted as it was, 
by faithful and sincere servants of God, whose 
whole life and labours were devoted to the promul- 
gation of what they conceived to be everlasting 
truth. I only say, and, at the distance of more 
than twenty years, I believe that I am right in 
saying, that it was a ministry which turned the at- 
tention of the creature too much in an external di- 
rection ; and consequently, led the mind outward, 
when all its powers of observation and obedience, 
should have been directed inward. Whatever, 
and wherever, was the hinderance, I always felt the 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 235 

want of something more fresh and living than what 
I met with; and I can well remember how my 
spirit seemed to leap with joy, when a word here 
and there fell in my way, to which I could instantly 
feel that " all that was within me " yielded a ready 
response — an ardent, entirely satisfied Amen ! 

Whilst I was in this state of want and wish for 
some more satisfying spiritual food than I had yet 
been provided with, I happened to hear of the arri- 
val at the University of a Mr. M— — , a gentleman 
who had spent the preceding summer at Port Glas- 
gow, in a very intimate association with the persons 
who were reputed to be in possession of the gift Ox 
tongues. More from curiosity than anything else, 
I wished to see Mr. M ; and accordingly re- 
quested a gentleman whom I knew, and who had a 
sufficient acquaintance with him to take such a li- 
berty, to bring him some afternoon to take tea with 
me. 

The interview left a mingled impression on my 
mind, in which dislike was uppermost. There was 
something singularly earnest and affirmative in the 

manner in which Mr. M spoke on the subject 

of the gifts ; of the reality of which, he declared 
that he had himself been a witness ; as well as of 
the perfect restoration to health of two invalid young 
women, at the command of a brother of one of 
them. It was quite impossible to doubt a testimony 
so decidedly and soberly given ; for nothing could 
be further removed from fanaticism or enthusiasm, 



236 REMINISCENCES OF 

than Mr. M seemed to be, at least, in his con- 
versation. At the close of the evening, when he 
read the Scriptures, and, more particularly, when 
he went to prayer, he became terribly excited ; 
breaking out, in the latter act, into the most awful, 
unearthly burst of sound I ever listened to, and 
which actually made me shiver with fear. Both 
A — and I, as soon as he was gone, agreed that 
this could never be of God ; and if not, that it must 
assuredly be of Satan ; for, beyond all question, it 
was not in the power of man, unassisted by some 
sort of spiritual agency, to send forth such a voice, 
as, without any exaggeration, shook the room in 
which we were. I did not feel desirous of seeing 
any more of him ; but, disappointed as I was, as far 

as Mr. M himself was concerned, I found new 

and great satisfaction in reading some of the tracts 
he left with me ; and which were chiefly notes, taken 
in shorthand, of the sermons of a Scotch minister, 
who was a believer in the miracle of the revived 
gift of tongues. There was an unction and vigour 
in these tracts, which delighted and refreshed me, 
and caused me to wish to know more respecting the 
gifts and the receivers of them ; a wish which was 
greatly strengthened by finding that a person so 
manifestly pious and sincere as the author of these 
tracts, was favourable to their reception as a genuine 
work of God. 

On receiving a second visit from Mr. M , I 

was more agreeably impressed by his discourse. He 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 237 

dwelt perpetually upon the indwelling power of the 
Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer, as the gift 
promised to the church, and as one which he said 
was to be sought, and obtained, and known as a 
possession, by the manifestation of some gift, — it 
might be of tongues, of healing, of the word of wis- 
dom, &c. ; but at all events, the Scriptures testified 
that some seal was to be a witness to the soul, that 
God was in it of a truth. 

All this was new to me ; and I can now see clearly 
enough, that it was the novelty and boldness of the 
affirmation, that occasioned the vivid impression it 
made upon my mind, not only then, but for some 
time after. 

I became quite eager to know more of these 
things ; and having a friend in Scotland, I wTote to 
her to inquire what she had heard and thought 
about them. She replied that she was herself a 
believer in them ; and that an individual of her 
own acquaintance, had received the gift of tongues ; 
for by this time, the miracle had spread, and seve- 
ral persons besides the party at Port Glasgow, were 
recipients, or supposed to be, of the gift. Mrs. 

S and her daughters were firm and fervent 

believers in the reality of the work ; but A — , as 
well as myself, held a divided opinion thereon. 

Matters were in this state, when I received a 
letter from my Scotch friend, informing me that 

Mrs. C , in whom the gift first appeared, and 

who, at the time of receiving it, was confined to 



238 REMINISCENCES OF 

her bed, and had been for many months in what 1 1 
was supposed to be hopeless consumption, having 
been raised up by a miracle, was just estabUshed 

with her husband at B , a village distant about 

eighteen miles from my residence ; that she knew 
her personally, and had written to her on my ac- 
count ; and that if I wished to make her acquaint- 
ance, I had nothing to do but to write to her, and 
say that I would come over and spend a day with 
her. As it was then the height of summer, and I 
should be able to go and return in the same day 
(having written, and received an answer from Mrs. 
C — — to say she should be happy to see me) A — 
and I made out this visit. We took with us a Mr. 

L , a married University man who had been at 

Port Glasgow with the gifted persons; and who, 
being acquainted with Mrs. C before her mar- 
riage, was glad of this opportunity of meeting her 
again. 

The circumstances which had placed Mrs. C 

and her husband in their present abode, were the 

result of an application from Lady to Mr. Ir- i 

ving, to procure her a married couple to superin- 
tend her school, visit her poor, and on the part of 
the gentleman, to officiate as domestic chaplain in 
her family. To this application Mr. Irving replied, 

by sending down Mr. and Mrs. C , who had 

then been but a short time married. They resided 
in apartments in the school house, and thither we 
repaired on our arrival. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 239 

One would expect to see something remarkable 
in a prophetess; for the demonstrations of Mrs. 

C in the exercise of her gift, were reputed to 

be of a prophetic kind ; and assuredly, there was 
something singularly striking in this lady's appear- 
ance. She might be about six and twenty years of 
age. In person she was tall, and somewhat digni- 
fied, with a magnificent development of forehead, 
and remarkable elevation in the crown of the head. 
She was decidedly handsome. Her manners were 
gentle, quiet, and retiring; but such, as on the 
whole, gave me the idea of her being a proud, ra- 
ther than a humble person. Whatever was the 
cause, I did not feel at my ease in her company ; 
but the strangeness of the circumstances that en- 
veloped her, had probably, much to do with this. 
I did not allow myself to suppose so at the time, 
but I have since thought, that a certain mournful 
anxiousness which was quite visible both in her 
countenance and manner, was the result of her 
being troubled with a latent consciousness that she 
had been too hasty in announcing herself as the 
favoured subject of miraculous endowment; and 
that she began to discern, that she would have been 
more easy and happy, without the notice which such 
a condition, necessarily, attracted towards her. 

In saying this, I do not for a moment doubt but 
that she believed herself to be inspired ; and to be 
divinely required to give forth whatever might be 
presented to her mind as a message to her fellow 



240 REMINISCENCES OF 

creatures. It was this persuasion, I quite believe, 
which, struggling as it did, with apprehensions that 
she might be mistaken, and that, whether mistaken 
or not, she had placed herself in a position in which 
she was no longer a free agent, since everybody 
who came in her way would be watching and wait- 
ing for some demonstration from her, and would be 
likely to prove sceptical or scornful in regard to 
her claims without it, — it was this internal conflict, 
which, as I believe, imparted to her demeanour an 
appearance of disquietude, that passed for anxiety 
about the church, and was supposed to denote an 
inward lamentation, after the manner of Jeremiah, 
for its lapsed condition ; but which, I am inclined 
to think, if it could have been scrutinized, would 
have worn the semblance of a more direct applica- 
tion to her personal feelings. 

These were after thoughts on my part. At that 
time I was greatly led away by her pretensions, 
and returned home much solemnized in spirit, not 
from having witnessed any exhibition of her gift, 
for none occurred ; but from a feeling of restraint 
and subjugation upon my nature, which, from what- 
ever cause arising, it was good for me to expe- 
rience. 

A few weeks after this, I received a note from 
her, inviting me to spend a few days with them ; an 
invitation which I accepted. Some of the circum- 
stances attending this visit may be worth detailing. 

The coach by which I travelled to B went 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 241 

very early in the day, and on my arriving at the 

lodgings of Mr. and Mrs. C ' at the school 

house, I found they were not returned from the 
Hall, Lady 's abode, where Mr. C offi- 
ciated every morning as chaplain to the household, 
and after which, he and his wife generally remained 

to breakfast with Lady , who, as a widow, 

living alone, received them frequently as her guests. 
More than two hours I think must have elapsed 
before they returned; during which time I sat in 
melancholy companionship with my own thoughts. 
1 was so totally unused to be separated from A — , 
that such a circumstance was in itself a vexation ; 
but I had heavier trials than that upon me. I had 
been for nearly two years in great affliction ; my 
health was daily getting worse, under the presence 
of an irritating cough that rendered many of my 
nights sleepless ; and little was before me but the 
prospect of being wholly laid up, unless I put my- 
self under decided medical treatment ; a measure 
to which I had the greatest possible reluctance, and 
which, as yet, I had contrived to avoid. 

I wished a great many times that I had not ac- 
cepted this invitation ; but as that was useless, there 
was nothing left but to make the best of it. Both 

Mr. and Mrs. C welcomed me on their return 

home, with great cordiality ; and I was pleased to 
observe a cheerfulness of manner on the part of 

Mrs. C which was far more agreeable than the 

reserve which marked it at our first meeting. They 

R 



242 RExMINISCENCES OF 

gave me the idea of people who had just escaped 
from a situation of constraint ; and, as it happened, 
something of the sort was actually the case, the cir- 
cumstances attending their breakfast at the Hall 
that morning having been of an unpleasant kindj 
in consequence of the presence of some divine from 
London, who took the liberty to question the reality 
of the gift of tongues, and that in a way so shock- 
ing to the feelings of Mrs. C , that she had 

been compelled to rush out of the room, and go to 
prayer in an adjoining apartment. 

She was seated by me on the sofa during the 
narration of this matter ; which, having been amply 
discussed, some remark of mine occasioned her to 
take my hand, as if in token of sympathy with what 
I said. She retained it so long, that I began to 
feel a degree of embarrassment, which was aug- 
mented into dread, when I perceived her to cover 
her eyes with her disengaged hand, and sink into a 

long and profound silence. Mr. C also ceased 

to converse. It was really an awful contiguity in 
which I found myself ; but being in a measure pre- 
pared for a demonstration at any moment, I was 
not so w^holly taken aback, as 1 otherwise should 
have been, when she at length broke out with a 
loud and sudden burst of the unknown tongue. 
Wholly unknown indeed was it to me ; but it 
sounded something like the Greek which I had oc- 
casionally heard recited in the Senate House. It 
lasted but a very little time, and was succeeded by 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 243 

short and frequently repeated sentences in good in- 
telligible English, and all of the most cheerful and 
encouraging nature. " Ye are his witnesses — ye 
are his witnesses," I remember was one of them. 
After declaiming in this way sometime with her eyes 
closed, she went off into singing a hymn in a voice of 
triumphant joy, that was inexpressibly delightful. 

It strangely, but profitably affected me. Mr. 

C had long been kneeling in prayer before she 

ended; and irresistible was the impulse that in- 
clined me to unite with him. I shall never say, 
nor think otherwise, than that it was a glorious, 
beautiful outbreak that had come upon us ; and im- 
possible was it for me then, and equally impossible 
is it for me now, to believe, but that whatever spirit 
might be the original prompter of the act, the 
mighty power of God overcame all evil in it, and 
rendered it one full fraught with blessing to the 
souls of his poor, ignorant, helpless creatures. Ne- 
ver — no never, had my parched spirit so satisfac- 
torily drank of living water, and been refreshed. 
Tears, but not of bitterness, tears that soothed and 
benefited me, almost rained from my eyes; and 
when she ceased, it was an act of instinct for me 
to go up and kiss, and bless her, for the season of 
good she had been the means of bringing to my 
withered heart. 

She seemed herself to have derived new hfe from 
the exercise. Her very countenance was altered, 
and lighted up with a radiance that had something 



244 REMINISCENCES OF 

divine in it. She was calm and happy, and after a 
little quietness, the devotional fervour of her spirit 
being expended, she became so easy and social in 

her deportment, and Mr. C so full of simple 

kindness, that I felt a liberty of conversation with 
them both, which promised to render my visit a far 
more agreeable one than I had ventured to anti- 
cipate. 

After we had been together some two or three 
hours, and I was walking out with her in the village 
to visit some of the cottagers, she mentioned as a 
thing quite by the bye, and one that she had for- 
gotten, that Lady had sent a message by her 

in the morning, to say that she should be happy to 
see me with them at dinner. Nothing seemed to 
have been more probable, than that I should have 
received this notification too late to have presented 
myself in any other than my morning and travelling 
dress, at the table of a lady of rank who was nearly 
a stranger to me ; having seen her only on the oc- 
casion of my former visit, when we all took tea at 
the hall. 

It would not become me during, possibly, the 
lifetime of the respected lady at whose house I was 
thus made a guest, to enter into any detail of what 
passed there. I may shortly say, that a demonstra- 
tion of a very different kind from that which had 

occurred in the morning, was made by Mrs. C , 

soon after the dessert was placed upon the table, 
and the servants had withdrawn. I was witness 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 245 

also to another, on the morning I left, and which 

occurred at the breakfast table of Lady . I 

felt certain that it would not be possible for these 
abrupt and strange interruptions to domestic com- 
fort to be long tolerated. Much as I believed my- 
self to be edified by the particular exhibition of her 
gift which had greeted my own arrival, I confess I 
should have been sorry to have dwelt in any close 
and constant association with a person invested 
with such mysterious attributes, and liable to make 
such a sudden and perplexing manifestation of them. 
I was not at all surprised therefore, to receive a 
letter from Mr. C — — , a few weeks after I returned 
home, informing me that he had received his dis- 
mission from her ladyship ; that he was about to 

quit B on such a day, and that he and his wife 

would pay me a short visit in their way to London, 
where they were going to be Mr. Irving's guests, 
till their way was opened elsewhere. The arrival 
of a person so every way remarkable as Mrs. 

C , and whom all the religious people I knew, 

were longing to get a sight of, rendered it an im- 
perative duty for me to make a tea-party on the 
occasion, and invite as many of them as my room 
would hold. Manifold were the varieties of re- 
ligious faith which my apartment that night con- 
tained ; and of course, amongst the company assem- 
bled, Mr. M held a distinguished place. As 

always happens on such occasions, everybody's ex- 
pectations were doomed to meet with disappoint 



246 REMINISCENCES OF 

ment. The prophetess was not only silent, but 
absolutely dull, and unpleasantly abstracted within 
herself. If she had been made of wood, she could 
not have sat in a more motionless and inanimate 
way. The whole thing, as far as she was concerned, 
was a dead failure. 

On the next morning, matters altered for the 
better, if better, indeed, I thought it ; but the 
character of the manifestation to which I was a 
constrained and unwilling witness, was of so denun- 
ciatory and terrible a kind, as to fill me with dismay 
and consternation. 

It occurred under rather curious circumstances ; 
curious, at least in this way ; that, although I had 
taken myself out of the way, under an apprehension 
that something of the sort might take place, it 
seemed impossible for me to escape from coming 
under its influence. 

The case was this : — Soon after breakfast, A — 
being gone to her pupils, I found myself alone 

with Mrs. C and her husband ; a position of 

affairs which I did not altogether like, foreseeing 
what it might possibly lead to. I was still more 
unwell in health than when I was their guest ; and 
peculiar circumstances occasioned me also to be 
still more dejected in mind ; whilst the character 
of that dejection threw a degree of fretfulness 
over my spirit, which wholly disinclined me for 
the docility which was required to render me a per- 
fectly patient recipient of Mrs. C *s somewhat 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 247 

wild and incongruous exhibitions. Under the plea, 
therefore, of having to give orders to my servant 
about the dinner, I left her and her husband toge- 
ther, in a little breakfast room I had upstairs ; and 
having despatched my business in the kitchen, I 
went and sat down in the parlour, intending to re- 
main there till one, or both of my visitors, came 
down stairs. I had not been there above five mi- 
nutes, before I heard a sudden burst of the most 
remarkable sounds that had ever met my ears, and 
which, till I remembered their source, seemed to 
me like the ravings of insanity. It was only a mo- 
mentary doubt that I entertained respecting their 
nature and origin ; for it speedily flashed across my 
mind, that a manifestation of the Spirit, as it was 

called, was taking place on the part of Mrs. C 

in the room above. Strange is it to say, that re- 
pugnant as it was to my feelings at this particular 
juncture, to become a party to this exhibition, it 
seemed impossible for me to remain absent ; — an 
irresistible force appeared to drive me, whether I 
would or not, into her presence ; in which in the 
space of a few moments I found myself. 

I perceived that she was sitting with her eyes 
closed, and giving utterance, not to anything in the 
unknown tongue, but as usual, to short and fre- 
quently repeated sentences, to which Mr. C , 

standing near her, was listening with fixed and 
reverential attention. I sat down, with feelings 
much like those of a culprit on whom a heavy sen- 



248 REMINISCENCES OF 

tence of punishment was passing; for, that the 
message was to me, I felt a deep and solemn con- 
viction. It spoke of tremendous suffering for the 
flesh, and fleshly will ; which " must be purified ! " 
" it must be purified ! " Again and again these 
words were uttered ; as were those that followed — 
" It must be by fire I — it must be by fire! " " God's 
will be done !" I thought, and so I prayed; and 
overwhelming as was the earthquake (for such it 
seemed) that shook my soul, — the " still small 
voice" was not wholly drowned in the convulsion. 
As soon as she ceased to speak, and things re- 
gained their natural tone, and Mr. C had gone 

out to walk, I felt a strong impulse to tell her my 
particular sources of disquietude, and ask her coun- 
sel on my case. What she replied was wise ; — but 
far wiser was that which I could have received from 
a counsellor within my own breast, and to whose 
divine aid m}^ attention had for some months past 
been turned, by the perusal of two books which 
circumstances had thrown in my way. One of 
these, I have already mentioned, as the Letters of 
William Law ; the other was the " Letters of Isaac 
Pennington ; " one of the earliest members amongst 
the primitive Quakers. Great as was the benefit I 
derived from Law's book, — it was secondary to that 
which the Quaker's afforded me. " Being dead," 
he spake indeed to me; and were it permitted to 
the spirits of the departed, to hover over the souls 
of those who are deriving benefit from their minis- 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 249 

trations, I could well believe that in the dreary- 
hours and dreadful scenes that I was now about to 
enter upon, the spirit of that saint must have been 
near me, beholding with holy satisfaction some of 
the fruit of his labours. I do not believe it would 
have been possible for me to have lived in the pos- 
session of my senses, under the agonizing trials 
that were at hand, but for that " preparation of the 
heart which is of the Lord," and to which the mi- 
nistry of those precious letters, so mainly contri- 
buted. How often has the turbulence of my heart 
been quieted by a few simple words, addressed, as 
he supposed, to a sufferer of a hundred and seventy- 
years ago, but destined to bring a message of peace 
to one as yet unborn ! 

What living direction did I find in such sentences 
as these I ** It is good for thy spirit, and greatly to 
thy advantage, to be much and variously exercised 
by the Lord .... And oh, learn daily, more and 
more, to trust him, and hope in him, and not to be 
affrighted with any amazement ; nor to be taken up 
with the sight of the present thing . . . ." 

" And though sin overtake, yet, let not that bow 
down ; nor let the eye open in thee, that stands 
poring at that . . . Only do thou sink into, or at 
least pant after, the hidden measure of life (he 
means the holy Spirit) which is not in that which dis- 
tresseth, disturbeth, and filleth thee with thoughts, 
fears, troubles, anguish, darkness, terrors, and the 
like. No, no ! but in that which inclines to the 



250 REMINISCENCES OF 

patience, to the stillness, to the hope, to the wait- 
ing, to the silence before the Father.^' * And again ; 

" O my friend ! after it hath pleased the Lord in 
tender mercy to visit us, and turn our minds from 
the world, and ourselves towards him, and to beget 
and nourish that which is pure and living of him- 
self in us, yet, notwithstanding this, there remains 
somewhat at first, yea and perhaps for a long time, 
which is to be searched out by the light of the 
Lord, and brought down and subdued by his af- 
flicting hand .... 

" But how doth the Lord find them out ? O 
consider I ' his fire is in Zion, and his furnace in 
Jerusalem.' By his casting into the furnace of 
affliction, the fire searcheth. The deep, sore, dis- 
tressing affliction which rends and tears the very 
inwards, finds out both the seed and the chafi^, pu- 
rifying the pure gold, and consuming the dross ; 
and then at length, the quiet state is witnessed, 
and the quiet fruit of righteousness brought forth, 
by the searching and consuming nature and opera- 
tion of the fire " 

" Oh ! the Lord guide thee daily, and keep thy 
mind to him I 

** Look unto him. Help, pity, salvation, will 
arise in his due time ; but it will not arise from 
any thing thou canst do or think ; and faith will 



* Letters of Isaac Pennington, edited by John Barclay, 
p. 7. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 251 

spring, and patience be given, and hope in the 
tender Father of mercy; and a meek and quiet 
spirit will be witnessed, and the Lamb's nature 
springing up, and opening in thee, will excel in 
nature, kind, degree, and virtue, all the faith, pa- 
tience, hope, and meekness, which thou, or any else 
otherwise, can attain unto. Oh ! look not at thy 
pain or sorrow, how great soever ; but look from 
them, look off them, look beyond them, to the 
Deliverer ! whose power is over them, and whose 
loving, wise and tender Spirit is able to do thee 
good by them."* 

I am straying far from Mrs. C ; but if my 

reader thinks in any measure as I do, on the nature 
of heavenly things, he will thank me for detaining 
him over such extracts as these. 

The counsel of Mrs. C , though good in the 

main, was complicated, external, and consisted, as 
usual, in a string of doctrinal texts, of which 
" Abide in m^," was the principal one that fixed 
itself upon my mind. 

In the evening we were all to visit Mrs. S , 

at whose house there was a large assemblage of the 
religious world. I must not trust myself to speak 
of the circumstances of that night. I can only say, 
the excitement attending them was dreadful ; — and 
I returned home most thankful, that a guest who 
brought so much fearful confusion into my sphere 

* Pennington's Letters, p. 106. 



232 REMINISCENCES OF 

of action, was to take her departure on the morrow. 

She went ; — but not so the consequences of her 
transient appearance amongst us. It had stirred 

up a spirit of emulation in the family of Mrs. S , 

with my poor A — amongst them, which, acting 
upon their intense pride and limited experience, 
caused it to possess all the evil, and none of the 
good, that attended the case of Mrs. C . 

It was early in the month of November 1831 
that these things occurred ; by the end of the 
month, I was wholly prostrated on my sick bed, and 
more or less confined to it till the succeeding spring. 
What had been going on in the house of Mrs. 

S , where A — was a daily visitor during this 

interval, I could not tell ; but in some way, and 
somewhere, circumstances had occurred to produce 
a strange and painful alteration in her manner to 
me. I am far from being a person to be cajoled 
with semblances, where realities are wanting. It is 
my nature always to detect evil ; sometimes I am 
afraid, even when it has no actual existence ; but to 
look for the evil of losing A — 's love, to suppose 
myself an object of aversion and avoidance to her, 
was a species of misery and mischief, which the 
utmost stretch of my morbid imagination could 
never have reached to ! Still, there were unwonted 
absences on her part from my sick couch, and short, 
and unkind speeches when she was by the side of 
it, that wondrously perplexed me to understand, 
in one who, in my slightest ailment, had, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 253 

" Like the watchful minutes to the hours, 
Still and anon, cheered up the heavy time, 
Saying ' what lack you, and where lies your grief, 
Or what good love may I perform for you ? ' *' 

I discovered at length some solution for this 
painful change, in her becoming exceedingly de- 
voted to the subject of the gifts, and to those who 

upheld and discoursed upon it. Mr. M was, 

of course, the chief leader on this point. He had 
taken a little room near me, for the purpose of a 
daily prayer meeting, at a very early hour in the 
morning; and A — was, with her sisters, a con- 
stant attendant there, as Mr. M ' said I ought 

to be also ; for, to be ill, was little less than a sin 
in the eyes of that good man, and every other be- 
liever in the revival of miracles. Faith, as in the 
days of the apostles, was all that was needful to 
raise the sick; and much distress was occasioned 
me, by the well-intended, but most fanatical man- 
ner in which I was, in a sidelong way, rebuked for 
not rising from my bed, and going forth as a wit- 
ness to the power of the Spirit. I was so much 
impressed with the remarkable prophecy of suffer- 
ing that Mrs. C had, as I believed, addressed 

to me by divine commission, and which in a winter 
of great affliction, had been already partly fulfilled, 
that I literally dared not doubt the existence of the 
miraculous gifts, or question the proceedings of 
those who advocated them. I did not know what 
species of chastisement might yet be added to my 



254 REMINISCENCES OF 

present cup of sorrow, if I were not obedient to all 
that was set before me as a duty. My mind was 
wholly unbalanced, by the bold pretensions of those 
who surrounded me, and the extreme prostration of 
all my powers, which the nature of my illness pro- 
duced. 

Mr. Cecil remarks that " a tender conscience is 
a very great blessing ; but that a scrupulous con- 
science is a very great curse." The distinction is 
quite essential to be made and acted upon ; for I 
know, by experience, that there is scarcely any 
thing strange, ridiculous, or presuming, which the 
human being may not think itself required to say 
or do, when once the matter becomes a question of 
conscience. 

I could fill a volume with narrating the many 
wild, offensive, and preposterous actions into which 
the influence of a scrupulous conscience has often 
led me ; insomuch, that I am persuaded, that in 
many instances, the strangeness of my conduct was 
only pardoned on the score of my being non com- 
pos mentis. In fact, when the mind is drawn into 
that position of thought which represents the abo- 
lishing of common sense, and the reason of things, 
as a religious duty, there seems to be no protection 
for it from a liability to adopt such measures as the 
generality of persons would be inclined to attribute 
to insanity. 

I quite well recollect on a particular occasion, 
when I was considering whether, on the whole, it 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 235 

would not be a proper sacrifice to duty to burn my 
pianoforte, I was only arrested by the remembrance 
that it must be done in the open air, and that some 
one or another concluding it an act of madness, 
would rush to prevent its accomplishment. My 
beautiful collection of music was, under the wild 

influences of those wild times, when Mr. M 

burnt his books by the dozen, given to the servants 
to light the fires with ; and for many years after, I 
considered it unlawful to touch my pianoforte ; in 
fact it is only within the last five years that I have 
fully ventured to renew my music. 

There is nothing for it, I am more and more per- 
suaded, after much bitter and costly experience, but 
simply to obey the monitions of the inward guide ; 
which often point to the fulfilment of duties from 
which the cowardice of human nature recoils, as in- 
volving in them great pain and struggle ; but which 
will ever counsel the avoidance of whatever is at 
variance with sound judgment, and a right appro- 
priation of our particular gifts, whether of nature 
or grace. 

After the tribute of thankfulness that I have 
most sincerely rendered to the works of William 
Law and Isaac Pennington, it may occasion some 
surprise to find that I had not sufficiently benefited 
therefrom, to be able to make a stand against the 
pressure of influences so opposed to them in wis- 
dom and sobriety, as were those amidst which I 
was placed. But it was only a few months previous 



256 REMINISCENCES OF 

to this period, that those works had fallen into my 
hands ; and the principles to which they directed 
ray willing attention, were not, as yet, sufficiently 
consolidated into strength, to sustain me under the 
apprehensions I entertained of disobeying the will 
of God, by setting up my own sentiments and will 
against those of his servants, as I concluded Mr. 

M , and A — , and all those they favoured, to 

be. 

There scarcely ever was an instance, I think, in 
which a person not deficient in understanding, was, 
by the power of superstition, so totally embondaged 
and terrified by the most contemptible means, as I 
then was. I w^onder at myself when I look back 
upon it. But, added to a natural tendency to scru- 
pulosity of conscience, I was then so shaken in 
nerve by the sleeplessness of my nights, — (one of 
the most distressing consequences of my illness) 
thaf I had no capacity to do anything energetic. If 
I ever did rouse myself, my natural impetuosity of 
temper caused me to be violent ; and, of all things, 
in my present state, violence was the most to be 
dreaded, and, if I wished to live, avoided ; besides 
which, any appearance of it, or of any other of my 
frailties, furnished those about me with a rod where- 
with to chastise me, which they did not fail to make 
use of. 

The duty of getting up, and walking, and being 
made whole, by an act of faith, seemed so impera- 
tive, and certainly, if it could be accomplished, so 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 257 

agreeable, that, one morning in March, about six 
o'clock, I determined to get up, and accompany 

A — to Mr. M 's prayer meeting. Assuredly, 

the power of the mind over the body prevailed, for 
I took no harm on that occasion, nor yet, for a little 
while afterwards, during which I continued my at- 
tendance there. The notions of my medical man 
not being exactly in accordance with such proceed- 
ings, he openly said, that it was of no use prescrib- 
ing for me whilst they lasted ; and accordingly for 
a time he withdrew. It was not long before I had 
to send for him again. My illness returned much 
worse than ever; and now, being told by him, and 
believing myself, that there was no hope for me but 
in the most absolute stillness, I told A — decidedly, 
that I would go out no more. If I were to die, as 
I believed I should, and as my doctor thought also, 
nothing was more fit for me than the preparation 
to which silence and retirement were such needful 
auxiliaries. It was on the 12th of July, 1832, that 
I said I would leave my house no more; neither did 
I leave it, till the 29th of August, 1834, when I 
quitted it for ever. 

The reader is now, if he pleases, to behold me 
weakened and subdued by illness, and by apprehen- 
sion — left only with my usual companion. Mr. 

M is gone, and almost everybody is gone ; for 

it is the time of the long vacation. Still the prayer 

meeting proceeds as usual, but I know nothing of 

it, — except that A — is a pretty constant attendant 

s 



258 RExMINISCENCES OF 

at it. I would not even know this, if it were pos- 
sible to avoid it ; for I am labouring to empty my 
mind of all thoughts, all remembrances, and to be- 
come, in every sense of the word, " dead to the 
world, and alive only unto God." 

And now it is that those parts of Scripture which 
particularly point to a quiet waiting upon the Lord, 
come home to me as a message from heaven. I 
keep a Bible with marginal references, always by 
my side ; and, as a particular text is suggested to 
me, I turn to look for it. I am sufficiently well 
acquainted with Scripture, to fix immediately upon 
the place where I am to find it ; and when I do 
find it, it guides me, most likely, to many more of 
the same refreshing nature. I have thus, for the 
present, got a little sweet food ; the food which an 
inward want and wish directed me to look for. I 
then lay my book down, close my eyes, and give 
myself up to the impression it has left upon ray 
mind. I begin to understand the meaning of such 
passages as " my soul, wait thou still upon God." 
I begin also to comprehend more clearly, many of 
the monitions of a like kind, in the good Quaker's 
book. I find within me an innate repugnance to 
everything that is merely notional, and of the nature 
of which, I have no living and sensible experience. 
I pass whole days lying upon my sofa with my eyes 
closed, and many sleepless nights upon my bed, in 
the constant mental repetition of a few simple words, 
such as " Lord, meeken me ! Lord, quiet me ! " 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 259 

I speak deliberately, and under a consciousness 
that what I say is known to the Searcher of hearts, 
when I state that I have many times at the close of 
a day thus passed, retired for the night, with my 
interior nature so denuded of every earthly thought 
and feeling, that it seemed to me all white and 
transparent^ and as though I were almost unclothed 
of the body ; a condition so beautiful and blessed, 
that I never felt it for the shortest interval, without 
trembling at the possibiHty of its being disturbed 
by any outward intrusion. 

No one, I am persuaded, who has not made the 
experiment, can form any conception of the efficacy 
of mental prayer, thus concisely expressed, and 
constantly sustained. Coleridge seems to have ex- 
perienced in some measure its effects. 

" My main comfort," he says, " consists in what 
the divines call the faith of adherence, and no spi- 
ritual effort appears to benefit me so much as the 
one earnest, importunate, and often for hours, mo- 
mently repeated prayer, " I believe. Lord help my 
unbelief! Give me faith, but as a mustard seed, 
and I shall remove this mountain ! Faith, — faith, 
— faith ! I believe ; O, give me faith ! O, for 
my Redeemer's sake, give me faith in my Re- 
deemer ! " * 

Thus passing the summer, by the time the win- 
ter arrived, I found my mind considerably esta- 

* " Reminiscences of Coleridge," by Cottle, p. 382. 



260 REMINISCENCES OF 

blished in a certainty of divine knowledge. Only 
with the aid of God's blessed Spirit, I had found 
out the way of the Lord. I knew what it meant. 
I knew that it was one way, and not many ways. 
I had a personal, experimental acquaintance with 
the only path that led to communion with God. I 
had found it to consist, not only in the silencing of 
the outward man, but in the silencing also of every 
thought, and in the concentration of the soul and 
all its powers, into a simple, quiet, watching and 
waiting for the food which its heavenly Father 
might see fit either to give or to withhold. In no 
case could it be sent empty away ; for, if comfort, 
light, or joy were withheld, the act of humble wait- 
ing at the gate of heavenly wisdom, could not but 
work patience in it ; and thus render it by humility 
and obedience, more " meet to be a partaker of the 
inheritance of the saints in light," and also more 
blessed in itself; for, in the absence of every 
earthly source of happiness, and in the presence of 
almost every kind of evil, the exercise of patience 
gives a " song as in the night, when a holy solem- 
nity is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one 
goeth forth with the pipe, to come into the moun- 
tain of the Lord, to the mighty One of Israel." 

It was thus, in suffering, in silence, in sohtude, 
and in unceasing prayer, that a seed of divine truth 
was developed in the depth of my heart, which has 
never from that time been wholly lost. I trouble 
myself nothing with this or the other creed or notion. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



261 



I hold to that which God himself has taught me. 
I would give no offence to any ; but none shall 
rob me of that crown, and hope of rejoicing, which 
the Lord himself gave me in the day of my dis- 
tress ; even the knowledge of the way that leads to 
him I 




262 



REMINISCENCES OF 




CHAPTER XVI. 




iN the sketch of my mental history 
that I proposed to give, my purpose 
was to trace the particular influences 
that have conducted me to the reli- 
gious views I now hold. 

I am aware that it is in a very brief and eva- 
nescent form, that this object has been accom- 
plished ; but I must leave it such as it is, to the 
reader's clemency, while I devote a few pages more 
to the conclusion of my narrative. 

I might amplify it greatly, were I to go into any 
detail of the strange and melancholy scenes in 
which I was a sharer, towards the close of the year 
1832. But though the interval is long, there may 
be those yet living, to whom such a procedure on 
my part, would give pain. 

I may shortly say, that the heaviest blow that 
had yet been levelled at me, at length fell. I was 
constrained to part with my once faithful A — . 

I had warded off this stroke as long as possible ; 
for, besides that I did not well know how to do 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 263 

without her in my helpless state, I dreaded the 
possibility of sinning against God, by sending from 
my house a person whose pretensions to inspiration 
were supported by some whom I supposed better 
qualified to judge of the case than myself. One of 
these persons (now some years deceased) in a state, 
as was afterwards proved, of incipient insanity, ob- 
truded himself into my presence as I lay upon my 
sofa, and passed more than an hour in the most 
awful denunciations upon me for my want of faith ; 
— first, in lying there, when I ought, he said, " to 
be up, and about my Father's business ; " — and next, 
in not acknowledging the claims of A — to inspi- 
ration. About three weeks after this visit, this in- 
dividual, by some unmistakable indication of his 
condition, was under restraint as a maniac. 

This was, by no means, a solitary instance of the 
way in which my retirement was invaded, if not 
always by decided lunatics, yet by persons whose 
state of wild fanaticism and excited passions, might 
almost have justified their being so denominated. 

But, had I no friends, it will be asked, whose 
presence or influence might have shielded me from 
these fearful, and unwarrantable intrusions ? No ; 
I really had none to whom I could have apphed 
under such circumstances. The only near relative 
I possessed, was no more ; and the rest of my kin- 
dred were settled in their own dwellings elsewhere, 
and with their own engagements to occupy them . 
My particular habits of life for the last few years, 



264 REMINISCENCES OF 

and my entire satisfaction in the obscurity and 
retirement to which A — 's affectionate friendship 
gave all that I wished or wanted in the way of 
comfort, had so greatly separated me from all inti- 
macies, that had I desired to interpose the presence 
of a third person between me and her, and her pro- 
ceedings, I knew not where, properly, to look for 
such a one. 

Mrs. S and her daughters, to whom I might, 

and should, under any other circumstances, have 
turned as presenting to me such a resource, were 
quite as far gone as poor A — herself, in the folly 

and distraction which Mrs. C 's appearance, 

and Mr. M 's ministrations, had been the m.eans 

of stirring up in the minds of many persons in my 
locality. 

My kind and valued friend the Professor, in- 
deed, had not lost sight of me ; but it was not in 
the line of my acquaintance with him, long and 
intimate as it had been, to obtrude subjects of so 
personal and delicate a kind, upon his notice. 
Added to this, though I still received his morning 
visits, every three or four days to enquire after my 
health, if visits they could be called, which, after 
his fashion of conducting such matters in the morn- 
ing, when he wanted to be taking his daily exercise, 
and not losing time, were of no longer duration 
than five minutes at the utmost, and that interval 
occupied by his standing as if on the point of going 
away every moment, — in addition, I say, to the 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 265 

feeling it quite out of place to bring my pecu- 
liar disquietudes before him, I was harassed with 
doubts as to whether it was right to continue my 
acquaintance with him at all. Wreck and ruin 
upon all that was earthly, — be it friend or foe, — the 
right hand or the right eye, — father, mother, hus- 
band, or wife, — the more costly the sacrifice the 
better, — this was the doctrine in which I had been 
built up for some years past, but more particularly 
since Mr. M had fallen in my way. 

The good Professor was, of course, a doomed 
man then, as being manifestly of the earth, earth- 
ly ; — and though, as yet, I could not bear the idea 
of renouncing all intercourse with one so justly 
esteemed, my poor shaken mind was too much un- 
centred, and too greatly enslaved by the supersti- 
tion which was so rife about it, not to dread the 
possibility of sin in continuing that intercourse. 

With respect to Dr. I , my other intimate 

friend, he had wholly withdrawn himself from my 
society. The extreme displeasure and disgust with 
which my association with the evangelical party 
had inspired him, augmented by some not very 
conciliating conduct on my part, had totally alien- 
ated him, and for many months, I had seen nothing 
of him. Mr. Simeon and his allies, had long stood 
aloof from me ; for I need not say, that the intro- 
duction of the subject of the gifts into any part of 
his dominions, was high treason, and to be punished 
with the utmost rigour of the law. I had been 



266 REMINISCENCES OF 

totally discarded from his favour about two years 
previous to this time, for presuming to lend a book 
of Mr. Erskine's, called " The Freeness of the 
Gospel," to one of his female disciples, after he had 
taken the trouble, not only of talking to me for the 
space of two hours, one evening at the house of 

Mrs. D , upon the dangerous and unorthodox 

tenour of the w^ork, — but also after he had written 
down on paper, and given me his criticisms upon 
it. True it was, that all this had occurred ; and 
civilly enough I listened to his remarks, and re- 
ceived his criticisms. As I was not going to enter 
upon the hopeless task of trying to bring Mr. 
Simeon over to my opinion, and had no design of 
giving up my own, there was nothing else to be 
done, but to be quiet and civil. But, that quietness 
and civihty were to stand for submission and obe- 
dience, no word indicative of either being spoken 
by me, — I had not imagined. I was not prepared 
therefore, to hear afterwards, that I had given him 
unpardonable offence by lending the book just as 
though I had never heard a word from him to its 
prejudice, to a young friend who was a hearer of his, 
and who incautiously spoke of the book to him. 

I was really sorry that the good man should re- 
gard me wdth such disfavour ; for I felt that, in its 
time and place, and as preparatory to something 
better, his ministry had been of incalculable benefit 
to me. A few months previous to the period to 
which I am now alluding, when I was exceedingly 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 267 

ill, and supposed to be fast sinking, I had said to 
a lady who was making me a morning call, and who 
was speaking of Mr. Simeon, that I was grieved at 
his displeasure ; — adding (but only as if I were 
thinking aloud, and without the slightest desire, or 
supposition, that the words would be repeated to 
him) " I should like to be at peace with him before 
I die." Greatly was I surprised, and, truth to say, 
vexed, when a few days afterwards, he called in his 
carriage at my door, having been induced to do so 
by this lady's report of what I had said about him. 

A — who was not at that time distinctly alien- 
ated from me, wishing to shield me from the painful 
excitement which might follow an interview with 
him, advised my yielding to the inclination I felt, 
to postpone his visit to the next day. He was not 
well pleased at this ; but sent up word that perhaps 
he might come again — which he did. 

I was lying on my sofa in a little sitting room I 
had upstairs, and though unable to rise to greet 
him, I received him as if I were pleased to see 
him ; which, in a measure (though not a very great 
one) was the case ; for I was at that time engrossed 
by efforts to be quiet, and, as far as possible, re- 
moved from all excitement; a mental condition 
which the approach of Mr. Simeon, under any mo- 
dification, was not particularly calculated to faci- 
litate. 

The very way in which he entered the room, 
and the rueful length of his countenance, — a coun- 



288 REMINISCENCES OF 

tenance on which I perceived a variety of not the 
most pleasing emotions, occasioned me involunta- 
rily to draw back as he approached, and in the 
most mournful of tones, asked me " how I found 
myself ? " He had not sat long by my side, when 
he expressed a hope " that I was now fully aware 
of the delusions of those persons with whom I had 
been associated ;" meaning, as I was at no loss to 
perceive, Mrs. C in particular. 

As yet I was not by any means fully aware of 
it ; so I took the liberty to express a doubt upon 
the subject of the delusions he mentioned. Poor 
man, the anger that quivered in every feature I as 
I calmly, but decidedly expressed my sentiments 

respecting Mrs. C , of whose pretensions to 

miraculous endowment, I said, I could not judge ; 
but whose powerful influence upon my own mind, 
and whose prophetic message to me in my own 
house, had left impressions of her being a servant 
of God, which rendered it impossible for me to 
regard her with any sentiments but those of re- 
spect. 

He soon ended his visit, by asking me if I wished 
him to go to prayer? a suggestion to which I 
assented, only because I did not very well know 
how to avoid doing so ; but had I been aware of 
the spirit with which he was about to enter upon 
that holy act, I should have preferred giving him 
any degree of offence, rather than have permitted 
it. Such a prayer as it was ! Such an invocation 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 269 

for (as he phrased it) " this thy creature on the 
borders of eternity," — or, as his tone and manner 
said, " on the borders of perdition^'' — oh, such an 
address to God, for a poor soul whose every waking 
moment was at that time a breathing of heart for 
her heavenly Father's help, to " turn her from 
darkness unto light," — it was fearful to think of! 
That he intended it for good, is all that can be said 
about it ; and, that, God be thanked ! he was not 
the final adjudicator of my doom, was the only 
comfort it afforded me. 

The necessity of sending A — to her mother 
at length became imperative ; and though as yet I 
was too imperfectly trained in acquaintance with my 
divine monitor, to be altogether fearless of doing 
wrong in sending her away, — yet, so well assured 
was I by the testimony of that monitor within my 
own heart, that many of the proceedings in which 
she was engaged could never be of God, that I told 
her calmly, but very decidedly, that if they were 
not dropped, she must prepare to quit my house. 
My habits of dependence upon her, added to my 
helplessness from indisposition, occasioned her to 
look upon this announcement as merely an im- 
potent threat ; and when, at last, she found I was 
really in earnest, she treated it with the contempt 
which seemed due to a determination that she 
scarcely expected to last for the space of four-and- 
twenty hours. My desire for her absence was at 
length so specific, that it could not at the moment 



270 REMINISCENCES OF 

be disputed ; and, evidently expecting a speedy sum- 
mons to return, she departed. 

I wondered at the serenity which clothed my 
mind during the first day of her absence. The 
total solitude to which she left me, was mournful 
indeed, but holy. The months of prayer and of 
bodily weakness through which I had been passing, 
and her own altered manner, together with the dis- 
comforts to which it introduced me, had well pre- 
pared me for what could scarcely now be called a 
bereavement. I was still in very weak health, and 
passed my time wholly in reclining on my sofa, but 
all immediate danger was over. The cough, and 
consequent hemorrhage, had, for some time left me; 
and now that with the departure of A — , the pre- 
sence of the wild people with whom she was asso- 
ciated was also withdrawn, I daily, and hourly, ex- 
perienced a renovation of mind, which, much against 
my will (for the dread I once had of death was 
gone, and I wished to die) extended also to my 
bodily frame. 

All my domestic trials, however had not taken 
flight with A — . A very constant, and a very irri- 
tating one was left behind, in the girl who waited 
upon me ; and of whose history, as mingled with 
mine at this period, I must give a brief sketch. 

I became acquainted with her about three years 
previous to this time, when, with some other ladies, 
I was a visitor at a place exclusively devoted to the 
reception of females of the most depraved class, 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 271 

to whom we endeavoured to impart religious aid 
and instruction. It was here, that I one day? dis- 
covered a young girl very ill, and very wretched, 
whose case I found, upon inquiry, to be accom- 
panied with peculiarly distressing circumstances. 
She was but seventeen years of age, exceedingly 
handsome, though with the beauty of a virago, and 
evidently with the spirit of one, flashing out of her 
dark, fiery eyes. The poor creature wept so bit- 
terly, and described herself as being so entirely an 
outcast, in consequence of being turned with her 
sister (equally degraded with herself) from her 
father s door, with no hope of its ever being opened 
to her again, — that I longed, if it were possible, to 
be helpful to her. At that time, and for some 
months afterwards, she was too ill for any employ- 
ment ; and being placed in the hospital, she re- 
mained there the whole of the winter ; during which 
time she was constantly visited by A — , and assisted 
by me. 

As soon as she was sufficiently recovered to oc- 
cupy herself in earning her bread, and must, at all 
events, turn out of her present asylum, it became 
an act of duty on my part, having so long had my 
eye upon her, to do what I could in her behalf. I 
made a fruitless effort to propitiate her father, who 
was a labouring man residing about three miles 
from the place. I then consulted with a friend on 
the subject ; who perceived, as I did, that vigilant 
care and protection could alone be of any use to the 



272 REMINISCENCES OF 

unfortunate girl, and that the only effectual service 
I could render her, would be to take her into my 
own house as a servant. This was a very distaste- 
ful measure to adopt ; but there seemed no alterna- 
tive, except that of letting her go again to ruin; 
since the only home she could look to, was one 
very cordially offered to her, by her unhappy sister. 
I was living in so much retirement, and my busi- 
ness in this world apparently ended, except in so 
far as I could be of any use to those who wanted 
my help, that much as I was disinclined for it, I 

resolved to take Lucy R at once into my 

house. I had another servant; so that her occu- 
pation was light, and consisted chiefly in needle- 
work, which she could do very well if she chose. 
Indeed there was nothing that constitutes the work 
of a domestic servant, that she was not fully capable 
of performing ; for she was a girl of great shrewd- 
ness and ability. Nevertheless, there was some- 
thing about her, independently of the painful cir- 
cumstances connected with her case, which I always 
disliked, and recoiled from ; but as A — took her 
wholly in hand, I had very little to do with her. 
For some time she behaved tolerably well ; her in- 
tractable temper being so well managed by the 
patience and good humour of A — , as seldom to 
break out in a way to disturb or irritate mine. 
There were extreme occasions, however, even then, 
when finding that the indomitable will of this crea- 
ture was too much for her. A— was obliged to have 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 273 

recourse to my authority to keep the peace. I had 
no difficulty in restoring order, by the simple an- 
nouncement that she must promptly make her 
choice between obedience or departure ; but the jar 
upon my spirit produced by such altercations with 
such a person, always occasioned me to say to A — , 
that I hoped nothing so dreadful would ever befall 
me, as to dwell under circumstances in which I 
should only have Lucy to wait upon me. 

This did not exactly occur on A — 's leaving me, 
for. I had another servant ; but as she was wholly 
employed in the kitchen, and it was Lucy alone 
that was about me, it amounted to nearly the same 
thing as though she were my only domestic. 

When she first found herself my personal attend- 
ant, the crafty creature, presuming that she was to 
step into the place of A — , was obsequious to the 
last degree, and perplexed me by her offers of ser- 
vice ; more particularly by her request to be al- 
lowed to bring her work and sit with me, that she 
might be near at hand in case I required her assist- 
ance. Such was my dread of sulky looks, of bang- 
ing doors, and of the other testimonies of gloom 
and violence, wherewith Lucy generally manifested 
her ill-tempers, that, in order to keep her tranquil 
and well behaved, I at first consented to her pro- 
posal ; but her presence in my room was burden- 
some. Any presence would then have been so ; 
for much as I missed that of A — when she first 
got into the habit of leaving me, I had long learned 



274 REMINISCENCES OF 

to feel relieved by her absence. Not choosing to 
be afflicted with the company of Lucy, I soon gave 
her her dismissal; an affront upon her pride which 
the fierce-tempered girl neither forgot nor forgave; 
and as her situation afforded her the opportunity 
to teaze me, she did not fail to avail herself of it, 
by indulging in a succession of such spiteful tricks 
as could scarcely have entered into the imagination 
of a less wicked person than herself. 

She soon detected my desire for as much silence 
as I could obtain. Whenever therefore, she was 
out of humour, which was almost every day, (for 
she detested the dulness of the house since A — 
went, though they were always disputing while she 
stayed,) she had a fine store of artillery to direct 
against me, in driving chairs and tables about the 
adjoining room, under pretext of sweeping it. Then, 
she would be continually coming up with messages 
respecting things of which the cook could have in- 
formed her as well as myself. The most extraor- 
dinary things were laid in the way to catch my eye, 
when by way of exercise, as I grew better, I took a 
turn out of one room into the other. Bits of old 
broken combs, cords, sealing wax, and anything 
that should cause me to speak, and say, " don't 
leave this rubbish here ;" and then she would say, 
" I'm sure I know nothing about it ;" and try to 
get into an argument on the subject. Anything, 
in short to stir me up, and set me talking, (a thing 
I was labouring to avoid) was delightful to her. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 275 

But the most trying of all her persecutions, was 
the determined way in which she would tell me all 
the news of the town that she could pick up, os- 
tensibly for my diversion ; though I repeatedly 
told her that I wished to know nothing of what 
was going on ; especially did I desire to hear of 
none of the proceedings that were taking place at 

the house of Mrs. S . Like it, or not, she 

would contrive to bring out her intelligence in 
some way or another. 

Not a beggar came to the door, or any creature 
from whom she could extract a message to me, that 
she did not disturb me by appearing with it. But 
truly, as in the case of the Israelites under Pha- 
raoh, the more they were vexed, the better they 
prospered, so, by endeavouring to turn this girl's 
persecution into a means of growing in patience 
and forbearance, it was converted into a rich and 
overflowing blessing. With one noble lesson, never 
to be lost, it largely enriched my experience. It 
showed me the glory and exactness of God's righte- 
ousness, in the retributive justice of which it was 
a token ; for, most impossible was it for me to con- 
template myself thus left with a selfish, ungrateful 
creature, bringing me perpetually under the harrow 
of her evil temper, without remembering how many 
wounds my own besetting sins had occasioned me 
to make upon the peace of others ! I thought of 
my parents, and of many more ; but most of all, I 
thought of my poor A — , such as she was when 



276 REMINISCENCES OF 

first she came to live with me. I remembered her 
devoted, never-failing-, patient love, and how often 
it was met with unkindness, how often repelled by 
harshness, when the irritability of my nature, ex- 
asperated by its trials, vented itself on whatever 
crossed its path, and crushed to atoms many a pre- 
cious thing", even though it were affection as rare 
and valuable as hers. I beheld all this in the light 
which Lucy's bitter nature diffused over it, and I 
" became dumb and opened not my mouth," for I 
saw it was the Lord's doing. But oh ! the hand 
of mercy which brought healing through the chas- 
tisement, and saving health with every drop of an- 
guish it administered ! How glorious was my life 
in those days of outward sorrow ! days, which if I 
forget, " may my right hand forget her cunning !" 
With the exception of the trials which this girl 
occasioned, and some grievous spiritual assaults of 
darkness and desolation which sometimes befell rae, 
my path w^as in " green pastures," and my repose 
" by the waters of comfort." By such a lengthened 
and continued habit of concentrating my mind in- 
wardly, I had acquired a new mode of life, and one 
that was practicable and beneficial, under the extra- 
ordinary circumstances that had befallen me ; but 
which it is obvious could not have been so in those 
of common and every-day existence. I could then 
well understand what it was that drove persons 
who wished for a spiritual life, into deserts, and 
caves, and solitary places. The slightest word of 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 277 

common discourse, brought a mist over the clear- 
ness and simplicity of my interior, which it required 
some hours of abstraction to dissipate. But this 
was a slight loss compared with the worse than be- 
reavement which followed any demonstration of 
passion, or disturbed temper, that I might be be- 
trayed into. The occasions of such an occurrence 
were rare ; for too greatly did I prize my treasure^ 
not to watch " lest the bands of the wicked should 
rob me ;" but the malice of Lucy sometimes excited 
my anger ; and then, how did she, and the spirits 
that ruled in her, triumph ! 

It will doubtless seem strange that I did not 
send this girl away ; and very glad should I have 
been to do so, but her very wickedness was a hin- 
derance to my taking that step ; for I could give 
her no character, though she had been with me 
three years and a half, except as possessing the 
worst possible temper; neither could I honestly 
have withheld the knowledge of her previous his- 
tory from any person who w^as about to engage 
her, if any would, under such circumstances have 
done so, which was hardly probable. Added to 
this, the girl herself had no wish to go. She knew 
very well that she could be nowhere so safe and so 
well off as with me ; and though she did not value 
my protection as any shield to her from temptation 
and sin, she valued it as helping her to regain 
something like a place in society, and as delivering 
her from a position of ignominy, which her pride 



278 REMINISCENCES OF 

(of which she had plenty) compelled her to see the 
shame and disgrace. I think too, that wild as their 
way of teaching" was, the homilies of A — , and 

Mr. M -^ had made a kind of impression upon 

her mind, that caused her to think it was a good 
thing to be religious. Be this as it may, she was 
sometimes deeply affected when she attended my 
domestic worship; which, though there were but 
three of us to make a family, I never omitted whilst 
she stayed under my roof; and when A — went, 
who used to officiate, I always deputed Lucy to 
read the chapter, which she did very well; and 
though often under visible ill-temper, yet, with due 
decorum. I never wanted power to pray in those 
days ; for I had wants enough, both of my own, and 
those around me, to spread before the Lord ; and 
very precious oftentimes were those seasons of sup- 
pUcation to me ; and though lamentably short-lived 
in their effects upon Lucy, they were not, I believe, 
wholly profitless in the impression they occasionally 
made upon her. Bad as she w^as, I felt far more 
assured of her coming under the power of my mi- 
nistrations, than I did of their being beneficial to 
my other servant ; who was an elderly woman that 
I had known for years ; exceedingly suitable to 
take care of my house, except that (as I found out 
afterwards) she was in the habit of drinking; al- 
ways civil, even-tempered and obliging ; but " hard 
as the nether millstone" in relation to everything 
that pertained to religion. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 279 

It was now so well known that I would see no- 
body (for I dared not, — I lost so mucli by conver- 
sation) that, with the exception of the Professor, 
who still looked in for a few minutes every two or 
three days to ask after me, and, as I grew better, 
to urge upon me the duty of getting out into the 
air, — nobody came near me. I read no books, — I 
did no work ; — I lay for the whole day upon my 
sofa with my eyes closed, and most literally, in an 
inward and spiritual world. I dare not say what 
gleams of glory, what openings, what an insight 
into wisdom and truth, were sometimes given to 
me in this total abstraction from all earthly influ- 
ences. I should only be scouted as a fanatic in 
making the attempt ; besides the subject is too sa- 
cred. It is enough, that though that condition of 
mind has long passed away, under the influence of 
the things of time and sense, to which, in returning 
to common life, I also again became necessarily 
subject, — the remembrance of it, whilst God gra- 
ciously grants me the exercise of my mental powers, 
can never be lost. 

The last link I had to break, was my friendship 
with the Professor, which I then considered it to 
be my duty to sacrifice, but which I have lived to 
see was one that was not required of me. I can 
now perceive, that, although in his visits, the tone 
of his remarks was greatly in opposition to the spi- 
rituality I was seeking to establish in my habits of 
thought, — and that it did for a while, bring with it 



280 REMIKISCENCES O^ 

a reminiscence of earth and earthly things that 
clouded and disturbed the atmosphere of my mind, 
I should have done better to have submitted to this 
interruption as coming in the course of things, and 
which, so far as it caused disquietude, I should 
have regarded with other sources of vexation, as a 
means of growing in patience and self-denial. It 
was under a sense of apprehended duty, that, find- 
ing the Professor, though not openly saying so, yet 
clearly indicating by his manner, that he considered 
me to be living and acting under the influence of 
deplorable fanaticism, I wrote to him a full expla- 
nation of the sentiments that occupied my mind, 
and very kindly, but very decidedly, informed him, 
that I could see him no more. 

All was now gone, and I was wholly left alone ; 
but my loneliness was only that which respected 
exterior things. I was left alone indeed, but it was 
in the possession of sublime peace, and occasional 
happiness, of which the memory is still fresh, and 
full of joy. And now, that the interval of nearly 
twenty years, has granted me the means which time 
can afford, of perceiving where I erred in judg- 
ment, I still believe, as I confidently at the time 
believed, that, eccentric as my course of existence 
must have appeared in the eyes of almost every- 
body who knew me, — it was the only course by 
which I could have been liberated from many 
chains that bound me to mistake and misery. 
Most assuredly also, was it the only course by 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 281 

which I could have been conducted to a knowledge 
of divine truth, which has never since been shaken 
by a moment's doubt. 

It only remains that I give the sequel of my 
story, in so far at least, as relates to that period of 
my life, beyond which, I do not propose to go, 
inasmuch as my mind since then, has known no 
variation ; and it was the history of ray mind alone 
which I stated it to be my intention to touch upon. 

When I found that I was really getting well, 
and, that in respect to common sense and propriety, 
it would be impossible to continue so marked, and 
as people thought it, half crazy a mode of living 
(though, God knows ! the craziness was to be found 
in the life I led when in the world, and I had only 
then come to my senses) I became disturbed in 
considering what I should do. A — was wholly 
gone. I had seen her indeed, at the lapse of a few 
months from her quitting me, and should have 
found no difficulty, had I been disposed to receive 
her back as my companion. But a variety of cir- 
cumstances rendered this undesirable. Her pride 
had received a terrible wound in being compelled 
to perceive, that, notwithstanding her avowed con- 
viction (of which Lucy often informed me) that I 
should soon be supplicating for her return, I had 
contrived for a period of nearly eight months, to 
get on very well without holding the slightest in- 
tercourse with her, and that it was by a movement 
on her side that we ever met again. She could not 



282 REMINISCENCES OF 

forgive this ; neither did I want her to do so, with 
any reference to its smoothing* the way towards our 
reunion ; though I should have been glad for her 
o^wn sake, that she would have taken lower, hum- 
bler, and more suitable ground. 

I begaa to see that I must rouse myself and re- 
turn to some of the small occupations of life ; but 
it was like one who feels that he must quit a pa- 
ternal home, and go out to the rough chances of a 
cruel world, that I prepared myself for such an un- 
dertaking, and which I procrastinated as long as I 
possibly could. As for going out of the house to 
walk, and run the hazard of meeting any of my 
acquaintance, I could not endure to think of it. 
My peculiar mode of hfe for the last year and a 
half, had generated a feeling of the most singular 
timidity. I remember that Leigh Hunt, in his Au- 
tobiography, mentions something of the same kind, 
as having occurred to himself, after his long incar- 
ceration in prison for a political offence. I was afraid 
of everything, and everybody. Nothing astonished 
me so much, as the reckless way in which people 
lived, and acted, and talked, and were thrown out, 
as it seemed to me, amongst outward things of such 
a false, polluting, bewildering character, that, how 
they could see their way through them, and get out 
of them without mischief, appeared to me little less 
than marvellous. I had been so long accustomed 
to the sense of shelter and security, which the mere 
act of closing my eyes, and laying my head upon 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 283 

the pillow of my sofa, afforded me, and of stilling 
every anxious thought with a few words of mental 
prayer, that 1 dreaded as much as if I were going 
into a field of battle, to quit this city of refuge. ^ 

That which I knew not how to do for myself, 
was, at length done for me. The force of circum- 
stances drove me from a rest, which, from having 
been my allowed comfort, was beginning to be my 
snare. 

The conduct of Lucy, which had with difficulty 
been endurable, became at last so totally intolera- 
ble, that I saw it to be my duty to send her away. 
Wearied with my adherence to a mode of life, 
which, from its quietude, she detested, — disap- 
pointed too, in the hope with which two or three 
visits from A — had inspired her of that indivi- 
dual's return, she became so insolent, and even 
cruel, in her contrivances to molest me, that I came 
to the resolution of dismissing her from my service. 
She was overwhelmed with surprise; for she was 
sufficiently artful to have penetrated into the rea- 
sons that had induced me to keep her so long ; and 
was well enough acquainted with my nature, to 
trust to the scruples of conscience, which would 
occasion me to shrink from turning her adrift. 

Those scruples I satisfied by placing her with a 
married, and, as far as I could learn, a respectable 
relative of her own ; and providing for her mainte- 
nance, by a weekly allowance, till I had considered 
what I should do with her. I may dismiss this 



284 REMINISCENCES OF 

girPs history by saying, that although she received 
from me every assistance which pecuniary help 
could give her, and from a kind and benevolent 
lady whom I interested in her case, all that a watch- 
ful guardianship could afford her ; though we had her 
instructed in a branch of needlework, in the exer- 
cise of which, she might with proper industry, have 
earned a fair subsistence ; and though, when this 
failed, the efforts of A — - (I never would myself 
speak to her character) succeeded in obtaining her 
a situation as servant in a family, — all failed. She 
settled to nothing ; but following the impulses of 
her own unsubdued will, and governed by the in- 
veterate idleness which is by no means one of the 
least evils that accompany the course of vice to 
which she first fell a victim, — she returned to that 
course, and in its awful gulfs was wholly lost to 
my further knowledge of her history. 

Her departure brought with it a necessity for 
some exertion. I had a servant to hire in her 
place, and to look over such of my affairs as had 
fallen under her direction ; and which I found, as 
might have been expected, in the most woeful state 
of disorder. Household linen had been left to run 
to rags, for the want of mending ; nothing was in 
its place, or appropriated to its proper use. Tea- 
cloths and towels had been used for dusters ; and 
from the appearance of many of them, to clean the 
fire-irons and candlesticks. The putting these 
things to rights, gave me occupation for several 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 285 

weeks. I had also employment in teaching my 
new servant to write. I made frocks and pinafores 
too, with a hope that never failed of fulfilment, that 
children would somewhere be forthcoming, whom 
they would fit. 

It was delightful to perceive what a genuine en- 
joyment accompanied these simple occupations. I 
remember the remark of a worthy Quaker lady, as 
recorded in the Life of John Barclay, and made in 
reference to the dealings of God ; '• he can bless a 
little ; — a7id he can blast a great deal."' I can set 
my seal to the truth of this observation. The 
blessing of the Lord was upon the humble pursuits 
in w^hich I was now engaged ; that blessing, of 
which it is truly said, that " it maketh rich, and he 
addeth no sorrow with it;" an enhancement of 
satisfaction, w^hich is seldom united to any other 
sort of blessings. 

In this manner the greater part of another year 
wore away, and though far from strong, I was too 
well restored to health to allow of my properly 
continuing confined to the house. It seemed to me 
that the time was come, in which it would be advis- 
able for me to take a step, that, painful as it would 
once have proved, was now only desirable. This 
was, to quit the place altogether. I had lived in it 
long enough to know it as the sepulchre of my 
youth, — my friends, and every earthly joy. It was 
little else than a desert to me ; and without a sigh, 
at six o'clock on a beautiful summer's morning, 



286 REMINISCENCES OF 

with an old servant as my companion (the Martha, 
whom I have named once before) who had lived in 
my father's house during my childhood, and whose 
advancing age was now comforted in the possession 
of an almshouse in the town, — I departed for a 
present residence amongst some distant relatives in 
the country, who had a vacant cottage at my dis- 
posal. 

How enchanting was the consciousness of free- 
dom, how exquisite the sensation of renewed ex- 
istence, as, for the first time for more than two 
years, I crossed the threshold of my door, to get 
into the carriage that was waiting at it ! The first 
thing that met my eye was a luxuriant rose tree, 
which the last time I saw it, was only a few yards 
high^ but which now covered the whole front of my 
house. " You have been quietly growing, and flou- 
rishing, and troubling nobody," I thought ; " God 
grant that I may have been doing the same ! " 

Well could I understand, as we bounded along 
the road, and every object I looked upon wore 
something of a charm to me, — those lines of the 
poet ; * 

" The hues of life more brightly glow, 
Chastised bj sabler tints of woe ; 
And blended form, with artful strife. 
The strength and harmony of life. 

" See the wretch who long has toss'd 
Upon the thorny couch of pain, 

* Gray. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 287 

But once regain his vigour lost, 

And live, and breathe, and walk again ; 

" The meanest floweret of the vale. 
The simplest note that swells the gale, 
The common sun, the air, the skies. 
To him are opening Paradise ! " 

I remained in the country, only during the 
winter ; for I discovered that I had made a great 
mistake in expecting to find retirement, and a 
shelter from observation in a village. The small- 
ness of the circle there, and the limited number of 
those who revolved in it, occasioned every fresh 
comer to be the mark of general notice. Every- 
body in the place knew what I had for dinner, and 
what time I got up in the morning and went to bed 
at night, and how I passed the intermediate hours. 
After a few oscillations hither and thither, the sub- 
urbs of London seemed to offer me all I wanted, 
and there, some years since, I settled down. 

The scruples with which my mind had been 
fettered by the influences of this and the other re- 
ligionist, continued for a long time to imprison it, 
and totally denuded me of the free exercise of such 
abilities as the goodness of God had bestowed upon 
me. When, on my replying in the negative to an 
enquiry, " if I ever wrote now ? '* I heard the re- 
mark, " well, that's a good thing I — I am very glad 
to hear that ; " — and when I have witnessed solemn 
looks, and deep-drawn sighs, at the idea of music, 
on the part of persons whose whole existence I 



288 REMINISCENCES OF 

knew to be devoted to the service of God, — it was 
but proper, I thought, to pause and consider well 
and long, how far it might, or might not be lawful 
for me, to resume such pursuits. 

I have at length found liberty to " break their 
bonds, and to cast away their cords from me ;" and, 
in such an occupation as this, — or, in the exercise 
of my musical abilities, or in any other way which 
the witness in my conscience does not oppose, I 
am taught to " let the counsel of my own heart 
stand;" — " for," as saith the wise man, " there is 
no man more faithful unto thee than it. For a 
man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more 
than seven watchmen that sit above in an high 
tower.^^ * 

I have arrived at a point of experience which 
occasions me to accept all human sentiments and 
opinions, with much hesitation and distrust. I see 
that there is a natural tendency in human beings to 
go to extremes, and to denounce those, who, on the 
subject of religion, choose to think for themselves. 
I perceive also, that the evil of corrupt nature 
works nowhere so powerfully, nor so unsuspectedly 
as in religious matters ; and that many sincere per- 
sons think they are doing God service by con- 
demning their fellow creatures, when, in all pro- 
bability, they are, unconsciously indeed, but very 
certainlv, indulging the latent malice, and love of 

* Ecclesiasticus, xxxvii. 13, 14. 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 289 

tormenting", which make so prominent a part of 
human corruption. I can discern that the views of 
such persons are so one-sided, and so narrow, that 
it is scarcely possible to make them accord with 
reason ; and that when once we abandon the use of 
reason, there is nothing too preposterous, or too 
absurd, or even too cruel, for the human being to 
engage in. 

The great desideratum seems to me to be the 
possession of a well grounded confidence in the 
dictates of an interior and infallible guide. The 
most excellent of truths that have to pass through 
faulty and infirm agents in their transmission, can 
never come to us without alloy. This is to be re- 
membered, and allowed for ; or else there will be 
(as at one period of my life there was for me) no 
peace, no rest, no belief of having done one's duty 
till the greater part of our friends and acquaintance 
are renounced as infidels, and the general conduct 
is that of a person who had, upon principle, abjured 
the use of common sense. 

The very essence of fanaticism consists in taking 
our stand upon some particular doctrine, and, for- 
getting how limited and low our knowledge (as im- 
perfect creatures) is likely to be of the full bearing 
of that doctrine, — the legislating from it for all the 
world; and, though purblind with prejudice, and 
cramped with bigotry, still supposing that we are 
seeing and judging in the freedom and impartiality 
of the Spirit of Truth. 

u 



290 



THOUGHT AND FEELING. 



In a word, " I have seen an end of all perfec- 
tion,'^ — and am come to the commandment of the 
Lord, which " is exceeding broad." Here I rest, 
and on this I hope ; — committing my helpless soul 
to Him who has been with me in all my trials and 
temptations ; — and who, in the sharpest of them, 
never " took his loving kindness utterly away, nor 
suffered his faithfulness to fail." 




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